Project 06

Erika Jensen-Jarolim, Dept. of Pathophysiology and Allergy Research, Center for Pathophysiology, Infectiology and Immunology, Medical University of Vienna.

Project 06: Development of mimotope vaccines for preclinical and comparative medicine studies.

Erika Jensen-Jarolim has been working in the field of allergy for 25 years. She has a strong expertise in allergology, oncology and the involved pathomechanisms and received many distinguished awards for her work. She has pioneered the work regarding mimotopes as potential allergy vaccines. Within this SFB she would like to study the mechanisms underlying vaccination with allergen mimotopes and establish a canine patient model for clinical phase I/II mimotope vaccination. For the project she has formulated the following aims: As well-characterized immunological tools for canine IgE biology will be essential, she will in the very first phase of the project create canine IgE, IgG subclasses and specific anti-sera in order to establish well standardized protocols, human allergological in vitro tests will be adapted to the canine system; further, she aims to profile the signature for allergy/immunity and inflammation genes by testing relevant cell lines and tissues of the dog in a real time PCR approach, and the protein signature using Tissue FAXS automated microscopy-based system. Thereby, a unique bank of tissues and tools should be created; In order to accelerate the progress of mimotope vaccines towards clinics she next plans to define allergens of clinical relevance for canine patients by component resolved diagnosis and compare their sensitization profile with human patients to identify mimotopes and the corresponding 3D-epitopes using peptide libraries, and perform the necessary preclinical studies in the established mouse models; In case of identification of canine allergens for which mimotopes already are available, such as grass pollen and mite allergen, she will initiate clinical phase I/II vaccine studies in dog patients with predictive value for human therapy; As a long term perspective she plans to establish a platform for coordinating comparative clinical studies for other SFB members working on food allergens, hypoallergens, mucosal targeting, vaccination or tolerization protocols, and different adjuvants.

 

jensenUniv.Prof.Dr. Erika Jensen-Jarolim
Comparative Medicine
Messerli Research Institute
Veterinary Medical University,  
Medical University Vienna,
and University Vienna
c/o Inst of Pathophysiology and Allergy Research,
Med. Univ. Vienna

 

Publications:

Hantusch, B., S. Krieger, E. Untersmayr, I. Scholl, R. Knittelfelder, S. Flicker, S. Spitzauer, R. Valenta, G. Boltz-Nitulescu, O. Scheiner, and E. Jensen-Jarolim. 2004. Mapping of conformational IgE epitopes on Phl p 5a by using mimotopes from a phage display library. J. Allergy Clin. Immunol. 114: 1294-1300.

Riemer, A. B., E. Untersmayr, R. Knittelfelder, A. Duschl, H. Pehamberger, C. C. Zielinski, O. Scheiner, and E. Jensen-Jarolim. 2007. Active induction of tumor-specific IgE antibodies by oral mimotope vaccination. Cancer. Res. 67: 3406-3411.

Scholl, I., N. Kalkura, Y. Shedziankova, A. Bergmann, P. Verdino, R. Knittelfelder, T. Kopp, B. Hantusch, C. Betzel, K. Dierks, O. Scheiner, G. Boltz-Nitulescu, W. Keller, and E. Jensen-Jarolim. 2005. Dimerization of the major birch pollen allergen Bet v 1 is important for its in vivo IgE-cross-linking potential in mice. J. Immunol. 175: 6645-6650.

Singer, J., M. Weichselbaumer, T. Stockner, D. Mechtcheriakova, Y. Sobanov, E. Bajna, F. Wrba, R. Horvat, J. G. Thalhammer, M. Willmann, and E. Jensen-Jarolim. 2012. Comparative oncology: ErbB-1 and ErbB-2 homologues in canine cancer are susceptible to cetuximab and trastuzumab targeting. Mol. Immunol. 50: 200-209.

Weichselbaumer, M., M. Willmann, M. Reifinger, J. Singer, E. Bajna, Y. Sobanov, D. Mechtcherikova, E. Selzer, J. G. Thalhammer, R. Kammerer, and E. Jensen-Jarolim. 2011. Phylogenetic discordance of human and canine carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA, CEACAM) families, but striking identity of the CEA receptors will impact comparative oncology studies. PLoS. Curr. 3: RRN1223.