Rune Hartmann’s project entitled Interferon lambda driven antiviral resistance in lung macrophages - a new therapeutic option? will be carried out with co-applicant Andreas Wack from The Francis Crick Institute in London. The goal of the project is to improve our understanding of how innate immunity can be harnessed to broadly counteract respiratory infections without causing excessive inflammation.

Lessons from the pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the ongoing threat of respiratory pathogens and how our innate immune response is crucial for our defences. A promising strategy is to boost our innate immune system, and in his Catalyst Grant project, Rune Hartmann aims to understand why, and how, some immune cells respond better than others to Interferon λ, an important signalling protein released by virally infected cells.

“The knowledge generated by this research could lead to a more effective, broadly active treatment against viral infections, useful for curbing future pandemics or treating novel emerging viruses,” says Rune Hartmann.

The Infectious Diseases Catalyst Grants is a new grant type offered by the Novo Nordisk Foundation with the goal to fund exploratory research projects within the areas Pathogenic Fungi, Novel Antimicrobial Resistance Tools and Harnessing Innate Immunity. The grants are up to 6 million DKK over 3 years for projects involving an international collaborator.

More information

Professor Rune Hartmann
Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics
Aarhus University, Denmark
rh@mbg.au.dk

This article is based on a news article from the Novo Nordisk Foundation