Research Group Barbara Meier-Schiesser, Dr. med. PhD
The research group unravels immune pathways in lichenoid skin reactions, employing cutting-edge single-cell and molecular analyses to identify therapeutic targets for challenging inflammatory skin diseases like Lichen planus.
Inflammatory skin diseases are frequent in number and often lead to a decreased quality of life in the affected patients. Our research focuses on the study of immune pathways leading to lichenoid skin reactions including the frequent inflammatory skin disease Lichen planus with its several subtypes, as well as drug-induced lichenoid reactions (e.g. by checkpoint inhibition). We aim to characterize the different forms of lichenoid skin reactions using integrated transcriptomic profiling with surface proteomics on a single cell level, multiplex imaging analyses, high-dimensional single-cell analysis (Time of Flight Mass Cytometry) of blood cells, followed by the investigation of the molecular mechanism using a novel three-dimensional skin-equivalent model. The aim of our research is to identify key molecules as targets for future therapies of these difficult-to-treat skin diseases.
