“Microscopy has undergone a revolution over the past 20 years” Prof Dr Matthias Gunzer receives many e-mails every day. They are part of everyday life for the head of the Department of Biospectroscopy at ISAS and director of the Institute for Experimental Immunology and Imaging /Imaging Centre at the Essen University Hospital. But in February 2021, his mailbox had a surprise in store for him – an invitation for a review from a special addressee. The immunologist explains in an interview how this came about in the first place and what ultimately became of it. How did you come to be invited to the review? Gunzer: The invitation from Dr Ronald Germain of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in the USA came by e-mail and was completely unexpected for me. It is an honour to be asked for an
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Prof Dr Matthias Gunzer heads the department of Biospectroscopy at ISAS and is Director of the Institute for Experimental Immunology and Imaging/Imaging Centre at Essen University Hospital.
In your paper, you focus on the analysis of neutrophils and macrophages in sterile and infectious inflammation using imaging. What conclusions have you come to, or what is »state of the art« in this respect?
opinion by such a well-known researcher. And Immu-
Gunzer: Around 150 years ago, physician Rudolf Vir-
nological Reviews is a renowned journal. That’s why my
chow discovered that the cells of the immune system
decision was a foregone conclusion from the very first.
can move. We’ve come an incredibly long way since
I also had some ideas in mind from the beginning and
then. In the review, for example, we focused on recent
knew that I would like to collaborate on the review with
findings in confocal microscopy and intravital two-pho-
Prof Dr Anika Grüneboom, who heads the Bioimaging
ton microscopy. In combination with modern mouse
research group in my department here at ISAS. We then
models, such as the »catchup mouse« we developed,
agreed that it would be nice to involve our doctoral
these methods contribute significantly to a better un-
students in the review as well, so we divided the tasks
derstanding of the innate immune response. Because
amongst ourselves and regularly exchanged updates
intravital microscopy is excellent for observing indivi-
and came up with some exciting ideas and food for
dual cells, research has been able to break down exactly
thought in the process. In the end, I think we were
how and why neutrophils (► p. 70) and macrophages
all able to learn something new whilst working for
move. We can also measure and quantify them reliably.
the review.
However, when it comes to examining larger areas, this
ANNUAL REPORT 2021
