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Research Networking Grants 2024 – Round 2

Research Networking Grants 2024 – Round 1

LEO Foundation Visiting Researchers 2024 – Round 2

LEO Foundation Visiting Researchers 2024 – Round 1

Functional characterization of dermokine in epidermal differentiation

Grantee: Professor MSO Ulrich auf dem Keller, Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark

Amount: DKK 2,603,579

Grant category: Research Grants in open competition

Year: 2019

Geography: Denmark

Epidermal renewal and keratinocyte differentiation are pivotal for skin homeostasis and maintenance of the skin’s barrier function, which is impaired in inflammatory skin diseases.

Expression of dermokine, a member of the stratified epithelium secreted peptides complex, is highly upregulated under these conditions, but its functional contribution to epidermal stratification and differentiation remains largely elusive.

We have identified dermokine as a substrate of the wound- and tumor-related matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) 10 in vitro and in vivo, a proteolytic processing event that might play a role in maintaining the phenotype of transient amplifying keratinocytes in hyperproliferative epidermis.

In this project, we will characterize the activity of dermokine and analyze its putative function in keratinocyte differentiation. Using advanced proteomics, we will identify surface binding proteins for dermokine on keratinocytes. Newly identified dermokine-receptor interactions will be characterized and related to signaling pathways that are activated in response to dermokine binding.

To test the hypothesis that MMP10 modulates dermokine activity, we will analyze the full-length protein in comparison to a truncated mutant, resulting from MMP10 cleavage. This mutant will be characterized for altered effects on keratinocyte differentiation, binding to receptor candidates and activation of downstream signaling.

This study will provide insight into the function and mechanisms of action of dermokine in normal and hyperproliferative epithelia and add to current knowledge on MMPs as modulators of extracellular signaling ligands in the skin. Anticipated results will help to devise new strategies for therapeutic intervention with barrier defects in inflammatory skin diseases.

Elucidating the origins of melanoma

Grantee: A. Hunter Shain

Amount: DKK 2,500,000

Grant category: Research Grants in open competition

Year: 2019

Geography: USA

The overarching goal of this grant is to better understand the origins of melanomas that appear suddenly, or de novo.

Approximately 70% of melanomas appear in this way, while the remainder grow out of preexisting nevi. Nevi can be monitored and prophylactically removed if they show signs of change, but melanomas that arise de novo are impossible to foresee. It is therefore of utmost importance to understand the origins of melanomas that appear de novo in order to develop biomarkers to predict their emergence.

We previously sequenced melanomas adjacent to nevi, revealing two classes of mutations – initiating mutations (emerging in nevi) and progression mutations (emerging in melanoma). Here, we hypothesize that progression mutations can precede initiating mutations. In this scenario, a melanocyte silently accumulates progression-associated mutations, followed by an initiating mutation so that the ensuing neoplasm ‘skips’ the precursor stages, manifesting directly as a melanoma.

If validated, this hypothesis would explain how de novo melanomas evolve. Here, we will genotype individual melanocytes from healthy human skin to test whether morphologically normal melanocytes can harbour progression mutations. Towards this goal, we have developed innovative solutions to establish high-quality genotyping calls from individual cells. In our preliminary data, we genotyped 17 melanocytes collected from healthy skin, and pathogenic mutations were surprisingly common, supporting our hypothesis. We will extend these studies to fully delineate the spectrum of cancer-associated mutations in melanocytes from healthy skin.

Overall, completion of these studies will reveal the origins of melanomas that do not pass through a precursor stage – a longstanding goal in the skin research community.

ICR Agonists as novel therapeutics for psoriasis treatment

Grantee: Vasileios Bekiaris, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Section for Immunology and Vaccinology, National Veterinary Institute, Danish Technical University

Amount: DKK 1,047,816

Grant category: Research Grants in open competition

Year: 2016

Geography: Denmark

Psoriasis and most autoimmune diseases are characterised by a deregulated hyper activation of T cells leading to chronic tissue destruction and in many cases significant morbidity. Immune checkpoint receptors (ICRs) negatively regulate the immune system by dampening lymphocyte functionality.

Bekiaris and his team have, as have others, shown that manipulation of these ICRs can alter the outcome of the immune response; a strategy currently successful in cancer immunotherapy.

In this project the team will use the mouse psoriasis-model (IMQ) to test the hypothesis that in vivo activation of specific ICRs will block the induction and progression of psoriasis. In addition, the team aims to characterise the importance of ICR signalling during the course of psoriasis, both at the cellular and molecular levels.

The study will delineate the molecular mechanisms underlying ICR signalling during skin inflammation and potentially create a new pathway for possible future treatment of psoriasis though opening of new targets.

The LEO Foundation Award 2019 – Region Americas

…Maksim Plikus. The Global Review panel was very excited about Maksim Plikus and said among other things: “Max has innovative research ideas and the scientific results obtained from his work…

Development of predictive psoriasis response endotypes using single cell transcriptomics in ustekinumab responders versus non-responders

Grantee: Kevin Cooper, Professor, University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center

Amount: DKK 3,653,532

Grant category: Research Grants in open competition

Year: 2021

Geography: USA

Among the biological treatments approved for the treatment of psoriasis, is ustekinumab, which is a monoclonal antibody targeting the shared p40 subunit of two cytokines, IL12 and IL23.

This project aims to improve psoriasis treatment by understanding why some psoriasis patients respond well to treatment with ustekinumab (responders) and others do not (non-responders). Interestingly, some non-responders to ustekinumab still respond well to inhibition of the IL23 pathway alone via the unique p19 subunit.

The pattern of differentially expressed genes among responders and non-responders may enable prediction of which intervention will be most beneficial for the individual patient. The plan is to compare single-cell transcriptomic analyses from both responders and non-responders to identify treatment response-linked gene expression patterns, so-called ‘endotypes’.

One size does not fit all for these biological therapeutics, and the goal is for the research to contribute to the development of a ‘companion diagnostic’, which is a diagnostic test used as a companion to a therapeutic drug to determine its applicability to a specific person, and thereby to personalized medicine in psoriasis.

Exploiting the untapped potential of the dermis to provide novel insight into the function of the skin microbiome

Grantee: Assistant Professor Christopher James Barnes, PhD, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen

Amount: DKK 2,388,289

Grant category: Research Grants in open competition

Year: 2019

Geography: Denmark

The skin microbiome has been thought to be highly individual, a kind of ‘microbial fingerprint’.

Yet scratching beneath the surface with DNA metabarcoding different skin compartments, we have found considerably less variation in the bacterial communities of the dermal compartment compared to the outer epidermal, challenging this dogma.

Here, we will extend upon these findings by performing a more comprehensive shotgun metagenomic approach, assessing whether compositional differences in the dermal and epidermal microbiomes effect their functioning.

The invasiveness of biopsies has been a major limitation in sampling of dermal microbiomes. Tape-stripping is a minimally invasive technique that penetrates through the epidermal compartment to the barrier with the dermis, and here we assess whether tape-stripping can substitute biopsies in accessing the potentially more informative, less environmentally variable skin microbiomes.

Finally, we will compare the dermal microbiomes of healthy controls to patients suffering atopic dermatitis (AD). Sufferers of AD have been repeatedly shown to have a perturbed epidermal microbiome, but they also have perturbed immune systems. Here we perform shotgun metagenomic and metatranscriptomic approaches to test for functional differences between the microbiomes of AD patients and healthy controls.

Studying the differences between healthy and diseased dermal microbiomes may ultimately fast-track identifying influential microbes associated with diseases, and their function within them.