Our research aims to understand the in vivo mechanisms by which inflammation drives (autoimmune) pathology. One major focus concerns the transcription factor NF-?B and the molecular mechanisms by which NF-?B controls inflammatory and apoptotic responses in vivo. Also ER stress and autophagy are being studied in this context, since more and more evidence indicates that also these pathways may be crucially involved in inflammatory reactions and the development of inflammatory pathology. For these studies we use transgenic mice as a model to study gene function in vivo, both through Cre/LoxP-mediated gene targeting allowing tissue-specific gene deletion, and through CRISP/Cas technology to introduce specific mutations in vivo. These mice are characterized in several mouse models of chronic inflammatory pathology, including models for inflammatory bowel disease, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, and multiple sclerosis.