CATCH ALL principal investigator Alexander Scheffold receives ERC funding for T cell research

Professor Alexander Scheffold, Director of the Institute of Immunology at Kiel University (CAU) and UKSH, one of the principal investigators in the CATCH ALL clinical research unit, and member of the excellence cluster Precision Medicine (PMI) in Inflammation in Kiel, has received one of Europe’s most prestigious individual research awards: the ERC Advanced Grant. With 2.5 million euros in funding over the next five years, his project RespecTreg will investigate how regulatory T cells (Tregs) help prevent autoimmune diseases and why this mechanism can fail.

Tregs are essential players in a healthy immune system. Acting as guardians, they prevent immune cells from attacking the body’s own tissues. When this protective function breaks down, autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes can emerge. Scheffold’s research aims to uncover which self-antigens these Tregs recognize and regulate, a key step in understanding why certain organs, like the pancreas or thyroid, are particularly prone to immune attack.

To identify these rare, antigen-specific T cells, Scheffold and Prof. Petra Bacher, Co-PI together with Scheffold at the CRU CATCH ALL, developed the Antigen-reactive T cell enrichment (ARTE) method. Using ARTE, the team will isolate and study Tregs from blood samples of healthy individuals, screening them for reactivity to tissue-specific antigens across various organs.

Their hypothesis: certain tissues interact more intensively with the immune system and are thus more vulnerable to misdirected immune responses. If true, this could facilitate the development of antigen-specific immunotherapies, including vaccines, to treat autoimmune diseases.

Alexander Scheffold will continue his work as a faculty member at TU Berlin starting in October 2025, where he will further develop his research at the interface of immunology and translational medicine. He will also continue his work in CATCH-ALL defining a contribution of Tregs to ALL.

The CATCH ALL team congratulates him on this outstanding achievement and wishes him continued success in this important research project.

Reference: Read the joint press release by Kiel University and PMI here.