What makes an allergen an allergen? Which signals must be emitted by harmless foreign proteins, on air-borne pollen for example, in order to be mistakenly classified by the mammalian immune system as harmful and allergic sensitization sets in? How does allergic sensitization work?

Our skin is a protective barrier between "us" and our environment. Yet the skin is much more than just a physical barrier. An acidic pH, immune cells and skin bacteria, the so-called skin microbiome, are part of the complex defense organ.
Which environmental factors influence the skin microbiome?

Understanding how and when people are exposed to environmental factors like pollen, spores or air pollution will help to identify the causes of disease. We believe that the more we know about which environmental factors exactly have which effects, the more we will be able to improve public health.

In the bioinformatics group at the Institute of Environmental Medicine, we are using statistic and computational approaches to understand biological data in the broader context of environmental diseases.

The HEALP junior research group “Health after post-infection” is dedicated to researching the medium- and long-term health consequences of infections and vaccinations. The focus is particularly on post-COVID and post-vaccination syndrome, but also on the long-known disease ME/CFS.

Biomarkers play an important role in the prevention, diagnosis and in personalized treatment of diseases.
Our innovative projects CoVnasal, CoVaKo and Early-Opt-COVID-19 contribute to the advancement of a medicine that can offer tailor-made treatments to patients.

The Integrative Data Science group is dedicated to advancing the quality, reproducibility, and integrity of scientific data and its analysis, with a particular focus on microbiome research.

On this page you can find an overview over most projects and studies that the institute for environmental medicine collaborated with