on November 13, 2012
Last Friday, November 09, 2012, Dr. med. Christina Zielinski received the 2012 Robert Koch Postdoctoral Award for Immunology for her outstanding work performed at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) in Bellinzona.
During her stay at the IRB (2008-2011) in the laboratory of Dr. Federica Sallusto, Christina demonstrated the existence of two types of human Th17 cells (lymphocytes that produce the cytokine interleukin-17) with distinct effector functions and differentiation requirements. She found that, by eliciting different innate responses, Candida albicans and Staphylococcus aureus induce Th17 cells that produce either IL-17 and the pro-inflammatory cytokine IFN-gamma or IL-17 and the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10. She also identified IL-1beta as the critical molecular switch that, by inducing IFN-gamma and suppressing IL-10 production, determines the inflammatory properties of human Th17 cells. This work was published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature.
Since July 2011, Christina is the head of a Junior Research Group at the Dermatology Clinic of Charité University in Berlin, Germany.
The IRB congratulates Christina for this prestigious prize.
Press release: http://www.robert-koch-stiftung.de/index.php?article_id=90&clang=1
