Research interests
Clinical dysfunction of salivary glands can occur during infections, autoimmune diseases and after irradiation therapy of cancer. Currently all therapies of salivary gland dysfunction provide only temporary symptomatic relief to patients. Hence, it is essential to understand salivary gland biology to foster the development of new therapy strategies. Given the role of IL18 and its receptor (IL18R) during homeostasis and following immune reactions we speculated that this cytokine may also play a role in the salivary gland. When analyzing the IL18R expression in murine major salivary glands, we detected a subset of non-hematopoietic IL18R+ cells that were located basally in the ducts. Thus, the goal of my PhD project is to characterize the IL18R+ cell subset and reveal its functions in the murine salivary glands with regards to tissue development, homeostasis and regeneration after injury or inflammation.
