Why do some patients with autoimmune diseases achieve long-term remission after an immune reset — while others do not?
This is the question at the heart of NEUTRO-RESET, the new research project led by Prof. Dr. Ricardo Grieshaber-Bouyer, Professor of Clinical Systems Immunology at FAU and physician at the Department of Medicine 3 – Rheumatology and Immunology at Universitätsklinikum Erlangen. The project has been awarded a prestigious ERC Starting Grant of €1.5 million over five years.
New therapies can deeply deplete disease-causing B cells and give the immune system the chance to reset. In some patients, this may lead to lasting remission without continuous medication. But in others, B cells can survive in protected tissue niches.
Grieshaber-Bouyer suspects that neutrophils, the most abundant cells of the innate immune system, may help determine whether an immune reset succeeds or fails. His team will investigate how neutrophils interact with B and T cells and whether specific neutrophil states can predict the response to T-cell-based therapies.
The goal is to make immune therapies more precise: to understand before treatment which patients are likely to achieve lasting, treatment-free remission — and how immune reset therapies could be improved for those who do not.
With NEUTRO-RESET, Grieshaber-Bouyer brings a previously overlooked immune cell into focus and opens a new perspective on how durable remission in autoimmune disease may be achieved.