iHEAD Research Aims

The overarching objective of this initiative is to gain deeper knowledge of immunometabolism in beneficial and detrimental host-microbe interactions. Exploiting new information on metabolic regulation of immune responses in plants and animals will create a higher level of predictability of host-microbe responses and strategies for intervention. We aim to develop a collective toolkit to study functional connections between immunity and metabolism. We will use this to build a biochemical understanding of plant and animal host immune systems and their reliance on metabolites.

iHEAD aims to capitalize on very recent advances in plant and animal innate immunity and microbiota research to develop a novel set of open-source bioinformatics tools, models and unified concepts for immunometabolism in animals and plants. This will ensure reproducibility, rapid advances, long-term success and amplification of this emerging research field in Cologne and across Germany and Europe. Interdisciplinarity is the cornerstone of the iHEAD initiative in which previously disconnected disciplines of immunity, metabolism, and modelling will be brought together for maximum synergy.