It is the aim of this cooperative project to evaluate whether the congenital host defense capacity of the lung against inhaled bacterial pathogens like S. pneumoniae can be improved by inhalation or transient lung-specific overexpression of defined chemokines and growth factors. In this way, new interventions for the treatment of pneumonia, independent of antibiotics, should be developed.

The lung-specific overexpression of macrophage-relevant chemokines has already been successfully established. The relevance of the results will be worked on across the sites with regard to the efficiency in virally versus bacterially induced pneumonia models.

Cooperating Partners in DZL: Biomedical Research in Endstage And ObsTructive Lung Disease Hannover (BREATH), Universities of Giessen and Marburg Lung Center (UGMLC)