Immune Responses to Intracellular Pathogens

Dr Ingrid Muller and Dr Pascale Kropf’s groups are investigating the mechanisms resulting in survival or death of the obligate intracellular Leishmania parasites, and the mechanisms leading to healing or non- healing disease.

The leishmaniases are a group of parasitic diseases caused by more than 20 different species of the protozoan Leishmania. They occur in 88 countries world-wide and the incidence of the disease is still spreading. Urbanisation of the mostly rural diseases and the growing number of AIDS patients developing leishmaniasis as an opportunistic infection are becoming increasingly serious. Despite considerable efforts there is still no defined and efficient vaccine available, and resistance to currently used chemotherapeutic agents has been reported.

Leishmaniases, like leprosy, are a spectrum of diseases ranging from self-healing cutaneous lesions to severe, nonhealing disseminated cutaneous, mucocutaneous, or visceral infections. To a large extent, the clinical manifestations of the disease reflect the efficiency of the host's immune response to the parasite. Many of the clinical manifestations of human leishmaniasis can be mimicked experimentally and these experimental infections provide valuable models to study the immunological parameters associated with these diseases.