ERC Advanced Grant · 2016
Eco-immunology targets one of the great challenges in biology and medicine - how the immune system has evolved to optimize protection and minimize immunopathology (incl. autoimmune) costs. A primary target of my proposal is to study low-virulent pathogens causing mild infections, which for long have been considered harmless. Recent research suggests that this notion is false and that seemingly harmless pathogens entail delayed (‘hidden’) fitness costs. However, the mechanisms mediating these costs are still unknown. I will experimentally test if accelerated telomere degradation is a causative mechanism through which small immune costs can accumulate and be translated into senescence and…
From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.