Mechiel Korte & Aletta Kraneveld
Neuroimmunopharmacology
“We would like to call the immune system our sixth sense. Continuing this analogy, you could regard immune cells in the blood as free floating brain cells. We believe disturbances in the intestinal immunological homeostatis and consequent gut-brain axis are involved in psychiatric diseases like autism.”
‘Neuroimmunopharmacologists’ Mechiel Korte and Aletta Kraneveld explore the immune-gut-brain axis using every technique they can get their hands on. They try to unravel the relationships between immunological responses to food, inflammation and the brain. A wrong immunological response to food components, as in food allergies, may have impact the brain. Ultimately, their research may be relevant to autism, Parkinson’s disease and depression.
“Our research is pretty unique since we combine in vitro research with cell lines and in vivo models. This means students can get to know and use a wide array of psychopharmacological and immunopharmacological techniques. Students will always combine different levels of research, taking both molecular and in vivo model approaches.”
Projects range from for example understanding connectivity and neurotransmitter release in neuronal tissue to adding probiotics or prebiotics to tissue cultures from epithelial cells, neuronal cells and lymphocytes and analyze changes in cell signaling.
“We generally host students from biomedical sciences or pharmaceutical sciences, but medicine students are welcome as well. We combine a holistic approach to disease with creative and challenging research projects.”