Code
3F004914
Duration
01 October 2014 → 30 September 2018
Funding
Regional and community funding: Special Research Fund, Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO)
Promotor
Fellow
Research disciplines
-
Natural sciences
- Organic chemistry
-
Medical and health sciences
- Biomarker discovery and evaluation
- Drug discovery and development
- Medicinal products
- Pharmaceutics
- Pharmacognosy and phytochemistry
- Pharmacology
- Pharmacotherapy
- Toxicology and toxinology
- Other pharmaceutical sciences
Keywords
x-GalCer
cytokine release
NKT cells
Project description
Modulation of natural killer T (NKT) cells is an attractive and relatively underexplored strategy for the prevention and treatment of cancer and auto-immune diseases.This project aims to synthesize -GalCer analogues that will allow further elucidation of the mechanisms responsible for a desirable cytokine polarization. Towards this end synthetic modifications of -GalCer will be judiciously chosen as to investigate the role of the stability of the glycolipid-CD1d complex, as well as the stability of the ternary CD1d-glycolipid-TCR complex on the cytokine outcome.