Since the 1st of August 2018, Werner Müller is Emeritus Professor at the University of Manchester, UK, and Project manager in the research and development department of MiltenyiBiotec, Germany. He is the inaugural Bill Ford Chair of Cellular Immunology at the University of Manchester and was from 2012 to 2017 the scientific coordinator of the FP EU Project SysmedIBD (http://www.sysmedIBD.eu), Systems Medicine of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Until July 2016, he was the research theme director for Infection, Inflammation, and Immunity in the Faculty of Life Sciences of the University of Manchester before the Faculty merged to the new Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health. In the new Faculty, he was the Deputy Division head for Infection, Immunity and Respiratory Medicine.

Werner Muller did his PhD thesis in the laboratory of Klaus Rajewsky in 1987 at the Institute for Genetics, University of Cologne, Germany and stayed in the lab until Klaus Rajewsky retired to start a new group at Harvard in 2000 (for review see Annu Rev Immunol. 2013;31:1-29). His most important publication was on the generation and analysis of the Interleukin-10 deficient mouse mutant, published in Cell in the year 1993 (Cell 75(2), 263-274). He also published among others, senior author peer-reviewed articles in Science (1991) and Nature (1996). In 2000 he started his department named Experimental Immunology at the Helmholtz Centre of Infection Research in Braunschweig, Germany. In 2006 he accepted the Bill Ford Chair of Cellular Immunology at the University of Manchester, UK.

Dissecting the Cytokine Network

Cytokines are small proteins secreted by cells associated with the immune system. Some of these Cytokines are positive some are negative regulators of the function of the immune system. In the case of Infections, the choice of Cytokines secreted decides whether a particular infection can be eliminated or not by directing the Immune System. Under certain conditions, Cytokine secretion can lead to chronic diseases like inflammatory bowel disease or affect other organs like joints or heart.

WM is dissecting the cytokine network and determine which cells are producing or responding to a particular cytokine. One of our favourite molecule we are analysing is Interleukin-10. By inactivating the expression of Interleukin-10 in various cell types, we can determine the importance of a particular cell type in a given immunological response. By this approach, we could identify that T lymphocytes are the critical cells producing Interleukin-10 and thereby control the Immune system of the gut.

Understanding Cell Migration of Lymphocytes

Lymphocytes migrate in the immune system between different organ structures of the immune system. This migration behaviour is determined in part by homing receptor molecules present on the surface of the lymphocytes and by adhesion molecules present on endothelial cells guiding the entry of the lymphocytes into particular sites. By inactivating either the homing receptor genes or the adhesion molecules, we were able to understand the importance of these molecules for the lymphocyte homing process.

Searching for evolutionary mechanism shaping the repertoire of our immune system

The specificity of the adaptive immune system is predetermined in part by sequences in our genomes, which become expresses only after gene rearrangements in lymphocytes. We are searching for a mechanism that is guiding the evolution of these sequences, most likely selected by two major forces, fighting against infections and preventing autoimmunity