Lung Health and Immunity

Dr. Varun Kumar from Helmholtz Munich has been awarded a grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG) to study how cells repair damaged DNA, with a focus on a protein called nuclear RAGE (nRAGE). This funding will support research aimed at…

Chronic lung diseases rank as the third leading cause of death worldwide according to the World Health Organization, with incurable conditions such as pulmonary fibrosis among the most severe. While healthy lungs have the capacity to regenerate, this…

A new project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) with an 18-million-euro grant is exploring the potential of the ubiquitin system for cancer therapies. Led by the Technical University of Munich (TUM), this four-year research initiative…

ERC Starting Grant for LHI PI Isis Fernandez for the project OMEGA on circulating monocytes, which are linked to PF progression from the insipient state to end-stage disease

Five prestigious Starting Grants from the European Research Council have been granted to researchers with Helmholtz Munich as the host institution. The funding will enable scientists at Helmholtz Munich to advance innovative projects across various…

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Driven by climate change, heatwaves are becoming increasingly frequent and prolonged in Germany. Especially for older adults, children, and people with pre-existing conditions, extreme heat can pose a health risk.

Interview with Prof. Önder Yildirim about nutrition and COPD.

An interview with Prof. Markus Diefenbacher, new Principal Investigator (PI) at the Helmholtz Munich Institute for Lung Health and Immunity

Janine Gote-Schniering and Niklas Lang (LHI) described the cellular changes in the early stages of pulmonary fibrosis.

Various tissue fibroblast types with distinct properties shape the architecture of the specialized niches of the lung (e.g. airways, alveoli, vasculature). In a significant breakthrough, a team led by Gerald Burgstaller and Herbert Schiller from…

A new study led by Helmholtz Munich scientists Ursula Zimber-Strobl and Lothar J. Strobl sheds light on the intricate pathways of B-lymphocyte development during adaptive immune responses. The study, published in Nature Communications, reveals that…

Munich site of German Center for Lung Research (DZL): Ali Önder Yildirim is following Erika von Mutius

How do ageing and environmental stress promote chronic inflammatory diseases? Maja Funk, new PI at the Institute of Lung Health and Immunity (LHI) at Helmholtz Munich is getting to the bottom of this question. Together with her team, she investigates…

Lung organoids and nano-toxicology should provide insights into disease-causing mechanisms deep in the lungs

A collaborative research project between scientists from Helmholtz Munich, Goethe University Frankfurt, Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, and Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, on “Understanding and Targeting…

To mechanistically understand the root causes of lung disease, and identify drugs that target specific pathways, the scientists around Prof. Herbert Schiller and Dr. Gerald Burgstaller from Helmholtz Munich are collecting deep molecular insights from…

Redefining a Global Problem and an Urgent Need to Decipher the Disease’s Multiple Sub-Types

We urgently need more exchange about our findings from COPD research and clinical practice. But we need to broaden our perspective on the disease just as…

The Human Cell Atlas (HCA) promises insights into ourselves, unraveling our cellular landscape.

Helmholtz Munich researchers have discovered, that air pollutants activate previously dormant herpes viruses leading to a immune response. These new findings are now published in ASC Nano.

Scientists from LHI join scientific forces to define possible future therapies.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) was in 2019 the primary cause of deaths from chronic respiratory diseases, accounting for 3.3 million deaths worldwide. In Germany, according to the “European Lung White Book”, the number of COPD patients…

Premature infants often struggle with breathing and require ventilatory support and oxygen therapy. Unfortunately, this might lead to lung damage resulting in lifelong consequences and chronic disease. Dr. Anne Hilgendorff’s team from Helmholtz…

ERS Early Career Member Award for her work on cellular senescence in chronic lung diseases like COPD and IPF

Lung research at Helmholtz Munich has made some spectacular breakthroughs. They could pave the way for the therapy of serious diseases.

"My vision is to combat COPD so effectively that it ranks only 20th among causes of death!” says the director of the Helmholtz Munich Institute of Lung Health and Immunity (LHI)

The newly established professorship of Experimental Pneumology, effective from July 1, 2023, focuses on investigating the immunological foundations of respiratory diseases.

LHI Scientist Lin Yang Awarded with 1st Prize

In January 2023, Helmholtz Imaging called for the Best Scientific Image for the third consecutive time. The winners were announced during the award ceremony on June 15, 2023, at the 3rd Annual Helmholtz Imaging Conference 2023. Lin Yang from the…

Breathtaking presentations of LHI/CPC scientists at Pint of Science Munich

From 2023 to 2027, nanoPASS will unite research labs, technology and industrial companies to achieve an ambitious goal: to close the knowledge gaps in nanosafety testing. Within the consortium, LHI PIs Tobias Stöger and Markus Rehberg (Helmholtz…

Loitering lung cells and cell death in COPD, female researchers with hijab, and the podcast host's concern after 20 years of cigarette use: the new episode of "Resonator" is an extraordinary conversation about Aicha Jeridi's research at the Institute…

COPD or pulmonary fibrosis - many chronic lung diseases develop in old age or worsen drastically in the later years of life. Which processes, which molecular processes play a role here? Prof. Dr. Mareike Lehmann, since 2020 group leader at the…

LHI/CPC group leader Theodoros Kapellos will have a great opportunity for international scientific exchange this year 2023. He applied for a short-term research fellowship at the European Respiratory Society (ERS) and was accepted.

On January 1, 2023, Prof. Jürgen Behr and Gerolf Schmidl received active support from the field of lung research on the Foundation's Board of Directors of Stiftung Atemweg. Dr. Ali Önder Yildirim, Director of the Instititute of Lung Health and…

Medical gaps in the treatment of incurable pulmonary fibrosis: LHI/CPC group leader Prof. Mareike Lehmann explains in the Süddeutsche Zeitung report how lung cells age and sometimes behave like zombies.

The cooperation of LMU, Helmholtz Munich, Bundeswehr University and TUM, receives funding for another period of four and a half years.

New Publication of Ali Doryab and Otmar Schmid (Schmid Lab, Institute of Lung Health and Immunity) in Advanced Materials

Publication of Ali Doryab and Otmar Schmid (Schmid Lab, LHI) in Advanced Materials

How can we predict the distribution of inhaled medical substances on the human body? And how can we do so with alternative methods without animal testing?

The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is funding research of new treatment strategies for preventing tissue ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) as part of the FERROPath consortium. Starting in July 2022, the consortium receives…

G-protein coupled receptor marks bronchiole remodeling by distal Keratin 5+ basal progenitor cells

By the use of fetal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), scientists and physicians from Helmholtz Munich and LMU University Hospital Munich have discovered a reduction in lung volume in fetuses from mothers with an uncomplicated SARS-CoV-2 infection…

T cells play a decisive role in fighting the coronavirus and preventing infected individuals from becoming seriously ill. They identify and fight the virus directly within the infected cells. A team of researchers working in Munich have produced a…

Researchers at Helmholtz Zentrum München together with scientists across Europe developed a novel animal-free method to predict the toxic effect of nanoparticles to the human lung. The method aims to enable the safety-by-design development of safer…

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is one of the most common and deadliest diseases worldwide. Until today, COPD is not curable. Researchers at Helmholtz Zentrum München and at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) have now succeeded in…

Every scar tells a story. Sometimes it can be dramatic, dealing with complicated injuries, surgeries and chronic diseases. Dr. Yuval Rinkevich would rather like to tell stories of regeneration, the healing of wounds on skin or organs without much…