Veit Hornung

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Veit Hornung (born April 15, 1976 in Munich ) is a German physician ( immunology ). He was a professor in Bonn and is a professor at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich .

Life

After graduating from high school in Pullach in 1995, Hornung studied human medicine at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich with a state examination and a doctorate summa cum laude in 2003 ( immunostimulatory DNA: effect on effector lymphocytes of the innate and adaptive immune system ). After completing his doctorate, he worked as an assistant to Stefan Endres in the Department of Clinical Pharmacology at LMU Munich until the end of 2006 . Until 2008 he worked as a post-doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester (USA) and in 2008 he became professor of clinical biochemistry at the University of Bonn . From 2014 to 2015 he headed the Institute for Molecular Medicine there. In October 2015 he followed the call to the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich.

He researched various receptors in the innate immune system that are specific for bacteria and viruses . The innate immune system has pattern recognition receptors (PRR) for potentially pathogenic elements ( PAMP ) foreign to the body or the body's stress response (DAMP) triggered by them. For example, he and others identified the receptor for double-stranded viral DNA AIM-2, which is located in the cytoplasm of cells (therefore called cytosolic receptors) and for which AIM stands for “not in skin cancer cells ” (absence in melanoma), and explained how it works of cytosolic PRRs for RNA viruses (RIG-1 like helicases ), which detect the viral RNA via the triphosphate group at the 5 'end of the RNA, which is typical for this group. In the case of the body's own RNA, there is another key part or the body's own RNA escapes recognition by these immune receptors due to post-transcriptional changes . Hornung is also working on the exact elucidation of the immune response after detection of the viral RNA. Other immune receptors he has examined are inflammasome complexes, which activate cytokines in the event of infections or inflammatory reactions . For example, he was involved in identifying the role of the NALP3 inflammasome in the inflammatory response to cholesterol crystals (and thus the development of arteriosclerosis ).

The research contributed to a new interest in the innate immune system, which, in contrast to the adaptive (acquired) immune system (with T and B cells), had been considered relatively primitive and uninteresting until then. However, this changed with the identification of several TLRs of the innate immune system in the 1990s by Nobel Prize winners Bruce Beutler and Shizuo Akira .

The members of his laboratory in Bonn also included Andrea Ablasser , who received the 2014 Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize for work that is also reflected in several joint publications on cystolic DNA sensors and a novel messenger substance of the innate Suppressed immune response.

The research has applications in vaccines, autoimmune diseases and inflammatory reactions in newborns, among others.

In 2007 he received the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize , in 2010 the Paul Martini Prize (with Jürgen Ruland ) and in 2009 he received a Starting Grant from the European Research Council. He was a scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation. In 2015 Hornung was elected to the European Molecular Biology Organization . On May 25, 2016, he was elected a member ( matriculation number 7689 ) of the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina . For 2018, Hornung was awarded a Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize .

Fonts (selection)

  • with J. Ellegast, S. Kim, K. Brzozka, A. Jung, H. Kato, H. Poeck, S. Akira, KK Conzelmann, M. Schlee, S. Endres, G. Hartmann: 5'-Triphosphate RNA is the ligand for RIG-I. Science, Vol. 314, 2006, pp. 994-997.
  • with W. Barchet, M. Schlee, G. Hartmann: RNA recognition via TLR7 and TLR8, Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology, 2008, pp. 71-86.
  • with F. Bauernfeind: TLR2 joins the interferon gang, Nature Immunolology, Volume 10, 2009, pp. 1139-41.
  • with A. Ablasser, M. Charrel-Dennis, F., Bauernfeind, G. Horvath, DR Caffrey, E. Latz, KA Fitzgerald: AIM2 recognizes cytosolic dsDNA and forms a caspase-1-activating inflammasome with ASC, Nature, Volume 458 , 2009, pp. 514-518.
  • mit Ablasser, Bauernfeind, Hartmann, Latz, Fitzgerald: RIG-I-dependent sensing of poly (dA: dT) through the induction of an RNA polymerase III-transcribed RNA intermediate, Nature Immunology, Volume 10, 2009, pp. 1065-1072 .
  • with H. Poeck, Endres, Hartmann a. a .: Recognition of RNA virus by RIG-I results in activation of CARD9 and inflammasome signaling for interleukin 1beta production, Nature Immunology, Volume 11, 2010, pp. 63-69.
  • with Eicke Latz: Intracellular DNA recognition, Nature Review Immunology, Volume 10, 2010, pp. 123-130.
  • with Rathinam, Latz, Fitzgerald a. a .: The AIM2 inflammasome is essential for host defense against cytosolic bacteria and DNA viruses, Nature Immunology, Volume 11, 2010, pp. 395-402.
  • with Duewell, Latz u. a .: NLRP3 inflammasomes are required for atherogenesis and activated by cholesterol crystals, Nature, Volume 464, 2010, pp. 1357-1361.
  • with AK Mankan: Retroviral danger from within: TLR7 is in control, Immunity, Volume 37, 2012; Pp. 763-766.
  • with Bauernfeind: Of inflammasomes and pathogens - sensing of microbes by the inflammasome, EMBO Mol. Med., Volume 5, 2013, pp. 814-826
  • with Civril, Deimling, de Oliveira Mann, Ablasser, Oldt, Wite, Hopfner: Structural mechanism of cytosolic DNA sensing by cGAS, Nature, Volume 498, 2013, pp. 332–337 Abstract
  • mit Ablasser, Goldeck, Cavlar, Deimling, Witte, Röhl, Hopfner, Ludwig :: cGAS produces a 2'-5'-linked cyclic dinucleotide second messenger that activates STING, Nature 498, 2013, 380-384, abstract
  • mit Ablasser, Schmid-Burgk, Hemmerling, Horvath, Schmidt, Latz: Cell intrinsic immunity spreads to bystander cells via the intercellular transfer of cGAMP, Nature, Volume 503, 2013, pp. 530-534, abstract

literature

  • Leopoldina newly elected members 2016, Leopoldina, Halle (Saale) 2017, p. 20 ( PDF )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Julia Koch Wehrhaftige auxiliary force , Der Spiegel November 20, 2009
  2. ^ Paul Martini Prize 2010
  3. ↑ Member entry by Prof. Dr. Veit Hornung at the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina , accessed on June 23, 2016.


personal data
SURNAME Hornung, Veit
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physician (immunologist)
DATE OF BIRTH April 15, 1976
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich