Bauer Lab
The Bauer lab focuses on analyzing and understanding inflammatory responses in various brain diseases such as autoimmune epilepsy, viral encephalitis and multiple sclerosis.
Our first interest is to get a better understanding of the pathways and cell interactions within the brain of patients with CD8-mediated autoimmune epilepsies. In CD8-mediated brain diseases, cytotoxic T cells (CTLs) infiltrate the CNS and can target different cell types, leading to a variety of clinical diseases depending on which cells and regions of the CNS are targeted. In addition to multiple sclerosis (MS), CD8-mediated responses can be found in a variety of neuroinflammatory diseases such as viral encephalitides, the classical autoimmune paraneoplastic encephalitides (with anti-Hu, anti-Ma2 or anti-Yo antibodies), but also in autoimmune epilepsy (GAD encephalitis), Susac syndrome and Rasmussen encephalitis a very rare unilateral epileptic disorder mostly found in children.
A second major interest is the role of B cells in multiple sclerosis. B cells are critical for the pathophysiology of MS. Their neutralization by anti-B cell treatment with rituzimab or ocrelizumab provides clinical benefit in MS, but the mechanism is not clear. Therefore, we are investigating the presence, phenotype and number of B cells in different brain compartments, their relationship with T cell subsets and their possible impact on microglial activation and pathological mechanisms in cortical areas in close proximity to meningeal B cell clusters.
Neuropathological investigation of human brain diseases is the cornerstone of our research but we are actively engaged in the use of molecular techniques such as spatial transcriptomics, snRNAseq and RNAscope. Different from other groups we strongly invest in performing these studies on paraffin-embedded formalin-fixed (FFPE) material and paving the way to unlock precious and unique brain samples that are gathered in neuropathological archives.
Our studies are performed in international collaborations. The studies on Rasmussen encephalitis, and autoimmune epilepsies are performed in close cooperation with Prof. Dr. Christian Bien from the Epilepsy Centre of the Hospital Mara in Bielefeld, Germany. The study on B cells are performed as part of a bilateral FWF Project with Dr. Lennart Mars and his group from INSERM in Lille, France. These human studies are complemented by the study of inflammatory mechanisms in controlled animal models with Prof. Dr. Roland Liblau (Purpan University Hospital) in Toulouse, France.
