Dr. Julia Zinngrebe

Dr. med. Julia Zinngrebe is a young investigator working in the Department of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

Julia finished her studies of human medicine at Ulm University in 2014. From 2011 until 2013, she worked on her MD thesis project in the lab of Prof. Henning Walczak at University College London. Her project dealt with the question how linear ubiquitination, a certain type of post-translational modification, controls innate immune signalling mediated by Toll-like receptor (TLR) 3, and how a defect in linear ubiquitination leads to TLR3-induced autoinflammation and immunodeficiency (Zinngrebe, Rieser et al., JEM, 2016).

After completing her studies of human medicine, she joined the Department of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine in Ulm and continued her scientific career entering the field of paediatric leukaemia research. About every seventh patient with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) during childhood suffers from relapse. Thus, new treatment options are urgently required. Julia evaluates the efficacy of therapeutic strategies interfering with the anti-apoptotic machinery of paediatric ALL cells. The prognosis of relapsed ALL is especially poor if the bone marrow is affected. This is why Julia also investigates how the bone marrow microenvironment influences leukaemia cell survival. As adipocytes account for up to 70 percent of the bone marrow, and given their role in the bone marrow niche of paediatric ALL is understudied and only poorly understood, Julia addresses the question how the survival and proliferation of leukemic blasts is influenced by adipocytes. Identification of possible interaction routes between adipocytes and leukemic cells shall help identifying new therapeutic targets, especially for those patients suffering from a bone marrow relapse.