Updates

Immunology Seminar

October 19^th at 14:00 – 15:00
Virtual event

Ilkka Junttila, Tampere University
Cytokine Landscape of Allergic Inflammation

Host: Riitta Lahesmaa (rilahes@utu.fi)

Register latest October 18^th
https://link.webropolsurveys.com/S/8BE883FC8E5AED43

Zoom link and iCalendar invitation to join the online event will be sent to all registered participants one day before the event.

Immunology seminar series is jointly organised by the Finnish Society for Immunology, InFLAMES Flagship and Turku Bioscience. For further information contact Anne Lahdenperä (ankahy@utu.fi) or Riitta Lahesmaa (rilahes@utu.fi), University of Turku.

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Dr. Ilkka Junttila, MD, PhD is currently Academy of Finland Research Fellow at Tampere University. He has received his MD (2001), PhD (2005) and Specialist Degree in Medicine (Clinical microbiology, 2014) all at the University of Tampere. He also received the title of docent (Clinical microbiology, 2017) at the University of Tampere.

He did his post-doctoral training with Bill Paul at the Laboratory of Immunology at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health between 2006 and 2011. Since then, he has focused with his team on pathophysiological mechanisms of allergic inflammation and in particular the effect of allergy-related cytokines on myeloid cells. He is especially interested on cytokines that share functional receptors (IL-4/IL-13 and IL-7/TSLP) and the logics of such receptor sharing in the immune system. Quite recently he has also become interested in the interactions of immune system, inflammation and malignant cell growth.

Currently he leads the Cytokine Biology Research group at Tampere University. His research is mainly funded mainly by the Academy of Finland and Tampere Tuberculosis Foundation. In 2014, he also received Finnish Medical Foundation 175 000 Eur funding for his research. He has published approximately 30 scientific publications and his lead-author publications include Journal of Experimental Medicine, Nature Chemical Biology and Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Selected publications:
1. Junttila IS. Tuning the Cytokine Responses: An Update on Interleukin (IL)-4 and IL-13 Receptor Complexes. Front Immunol. 2018. 9:888.

2. Kummola L, Ortutay Z, Chen X, Caucheteux S, Hämäläinen S, Aittomäki S, Yagi R, Zhu J, Pesu M, Paul WE, Junttila IS. IL-7Rα Expression Regulates Murine Dendritic Cell Sensitivity to Thymic Stromal Lymphopoietin. J Immunol. 2017. 198:3909-3918.

3. Junttila IS, Watson C, Kummola L, Chen X, Hu-Li J, Guo L, Yagi R, Paul WE. Efficient cytokine-induced IL-13 production by mast cells requires both IL-33 and IL-3. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2013. 132:704-712.

4. Junttila IS, Creusot RJ, Moraga I, Bates DL, Wong MT, Alonso MN, Suhoski MM, Lupardus P, Meier-Schellersheim M, Engleman EG, Utz PJ, Fathman CG, Paul WE, Garcia KC.Redirecting cell-type specific cytokine responses with engineered interleukin-4 superkines. Nat Chem Biol. 2012. 8:990-998.

5. Junttila IS, Mizukami K, Dickensheets H, Meier-Schellersheim M, Yamane H, Donnelly RP, Paul WE. Tuning sensitivity to IL-4 and IL-13: differential expression of IL-4Ralpha, IL-13Ralpha1, and gammac regulates relative cytokine sensitivity. J Exp Med. 2008. 205:2595-2608.