Cluster of Excellence ImmunoSensation³

The immune system evolves. And so do we. 

ImmunoSensation³ begins its new funding phase, building on past discoveries to explore immune diversity across scales. As a dynamic system, the immune system’s structures, functions and dynamics depend on genetic and environmental influences, lifestyle, gender, previous illnesses and age. These influences are reflected at the molecular, the cellular and the systemic level of the body. The resulting constant change and natural diversity of the immune system is referred to as immune diversity. 

Immune diversity forms the basis for the adaptive performance of the immune system and enables an individual immune response to pathogens or tissue damage, as occurs in connection with Alzheimer's, cancer, heart attacks or rheumatism. The aim of ImmunoSensation³ is to better understand the variability of the immune system in order to enable individualized and precise approaches for diagnostics, prevention and therapy.

ImmunoSensation³ is a Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bonn funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). We address the immune system as a sensory organ for health, which we term the immune sensory system. We are immunologists, neurobiologists, systems biologists, biochemists, biophysicists and mathematicians from the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the University of Bonn, the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) of the Helmholtz Association.

Founded in 2012, ImmunoSensation is currently in its fifteenth year of funding. We will continue to pursue our mission of innovative science in immunology. Further, we link immunology to other systems, such as the metabolic system and the nervous system. Ultimately, we want to better understand the intimate connection between the immune sensory system and human health and disease.