Prof. Sophie Janssens received her Master’s in Biology at the University of Antwerp (Belgium) and her PhD in Sciences at the University of Ghent (2003), where she studied the role of MyD88 in Toll-like receptor signaling. Passionate about cell signaling, she continued her research in the lab of Prof. Tschopp at the University of Lausanne (2005) to work on the PIDDosome, a complex involved in cell fate decisions upon DNA damage. After a second postdoc in a Peripheral Neuropathy Group at the University of Antwerp, she became Full Professor at the University of Ghent (2011) to coordinate a novel research lab on ER stress and inflammation.

Her lab focuses on the role of the unfolded protein response in immune cells in their normal physiology. They found that amongst all immune cells in our body, one subset of conventional dendritic cells (DC), the cDC1s, shows a particular high activation of the IRE1/XBP1 branch in steady state. This does not lead to the activation of a canonical XBP1 gene signature but is linked to their specific engulfment capacity and needed for their homeostatic maturation process. These observations coupled the processes of apoptotic cell engulfment, cholesterol metabolism and homeostatic cDC1 maturation and established an essential role for the ER and IRE1 therein.

This finding opened a whole new research line in the Janssens lab on DC maturation and the signaling pathways that control the decision point between homeostatic and immunogenic maturation. Current research programs are trying to address how DCs balance the decision between immunity versus tolerance both during homeostasis and during infection.