Maria Steinke

Chair of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine
University Hospital and Fraunhofer IGB – Unit Würzburg
D-97070 Würzburg

Tel.: 0931 31 80720
Fax: 0931 31 81068

Email: maria.steinke@uni-wuerzburg.de
Web: www.term.ukw.de

Research area:
Airway Tissue Engineering, Regenerative Medicine

Bordetella pertussis is the etiological agent of whooping cough and has recently been reclassified by the CDC as a re-emerging disease mainly due to vaccination failures. Because B. pertussis and B. parapertussis are obligate human pathogens, the current animal models (mainly mice) and cell culture systems have little in vivo relevance. Maria Steinke and Roy Gross investigate Bordetella virulence in a new 3D tissue-engineered human airway mucosa model, which closely resembles native human airway mucosa, a ciliated and mucus-producing epithelium. They perform imaging of the infection with different B. pertussis strains and mutants using multi-photon laser-scanning and multiparameter light-sheet fluorescence microscopy (cooperation Andreas Beilhack) and Raman spectroscopy and they will investigate host cell gene expression responses after infection (cooperation Jörg Vogel). The tissue model will be improved by adding human microvascular endothelial cells on the basal side of the scaffold, which would simulate the endothelial barrier.