Modeling SARS-CoV-2 infection and novel therapeutic targets at barrier sites

Presenter: Wilfried Posch, Medical University of Innsbruck | UPM Biomedicals 7th Annual Conference, 2021

Wilfried Posch is an Assistant Professor in Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Medical University of Innsbruck (MUI), Innsbruck, Austria. Wilfried studied Molecular Biology and the focus of his PhD was the characterization of human dendritic cells (DCs) exposed to non-opsonized and opsonized HIV-1. In this project, not only differences in activation, productive infection and maturation of DCs were investigated, but also the change in molecular and protein expression upon infection. This part was mostly done during his research stay at the University College London, London, UK. After his fellowship as a Post-Doc at the INSERM UMR-S945 in Paris, France, he returned to Innsbruck and joined the research group of Prof. Dr. Doris Wilflingseder. In 2012 Wilfried began to establish and work with 3D respiratory cell culture systems, which also included cellular immune components such as macrophages and dendritic cells.

In 2018, he received his Habilitation in Immunology from MUI and within the last years, he has established a research group at the Institute of Hygiene and Medical Microbiology. He and his team have been working on developing novel strategies for investigating viral infections such as SARS-CoV-2 or HIV-1 using human respiratory models. Due to his ample expertise in T cell immunity, the group is currently also interested in studying adaptive immune responses within their 3D respiratory cell culture systems.