Chotima Böttcher is a research group leader at the Experimental Neurology and the Clinical Neuroimmunology group, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the MDC, Germany.

Dr. Böttcher obtained her PhD at Institute of Pharmacy, Faculty of Natural Sciences at Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle/Saale, Germany. In the first year of her postdocteral fellow, she continued her study on biosynthesis of mammalian morphine at Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg and later at Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, MO, USA. In 2006, she moved to Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and has started her new research field –systems immunology in neuroscience, with particular emphasis on myeloid cells including monocytes and brain microglia/macrophages. Currently, her research aims to identify cellular and molecular complexity of human myeloid cells in different body compartments during neuroinflammation.

Affiliation:

Experimental Neurology, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC), Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the MDC

Title and abstract of my talk:

Cellular and molecular factors associated with disease activity in multiple sclerosis

Neuroinflammation is a common feature of multiple sclerosis (MS), in which the pathologies are associated with various immune responses in different body compartments e.g. local inflammation, microglial activation, and CNS infiltration of circulating immune cells. Characterization of more diverse immune cell types residing in different body compartments including peripheral blood, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), gut, brain interface and brain parenchyma is required for better understanding dynamic compartmentalization of these cells in early as well as in the progressive stages of diseases. Apart from immune responses, we evaluate changes in metabolome and protein expression profiles of tissue and fluidic compartment and investigate how these changes associate with functional and phenotypic changes of immune cells in different body compartments. Our findings provide more insights in dynamic cell signalling of immune cells from/between different compartments towards the CNS and the association of these cellular and molecular factors with disease activity in MS.