Webinar 11 Protective & pathologic skin type 2 immune responses against microbes

20 May 2025 By Océane Grimaud Comments are Off

Top-level science through the eyes of an expert.

Skin Deep: how microbes & immunity shape allergic reactions

Join us for the next session in Genoskin’s webinar series, where we explore how the skin’s immune system balances protection and pathology in response to microbial threats. This session will feature Dr. Philipp Starkl, who will share the latest research on type 2 immunity in the skin and how protective mechanisms can shift into allergic disease.

This episode of Genoskin’s webinar series is scheduled on June 4th, 2025 at 8 a.m. (PST), 11 a.m. (EST), 5 p.m. (CET).

From defense to disease: how type 2 immunity shapes skin health

Discover how type 2 immunity protects the skin from microbial threats—and what happens when it goes too far.

The skin serves as a vital barrier, protecting the body from harmful environmental substances and microbial threats. It is also home to a diverse community of microorganisms—the cutaneous microbiome—which plays a crucial role in immune system development and regulation. When this delicate ecosystem is disrupted, it can contribute to the onset of immunopathologies, including allergic diseases.

In this webinar, Dr. Phlipp Starkl will present new insights into the dynamic nature of type 2 immune responses during bacterial skin infections. He will shed light into the mechanisms that normally promote protection, and how under certain conditions, these same responses can become maladaptive, driving allergic inflammation instead.
This session is a must-attend for immunologists, dermatology researchers, and professionals in skin biology, microbiome science, or allergy and infection research.

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About the speaker:

Dr. Philipp Starkl

Associate Professor, Department of Medicine I, Research Division Infection Biology, Medical University of Vienna

Philipp Starkl studied Molecular Biology at the University of Vienna, Austria. During his Master’s thesis with Támas Schweighoffer at the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research in Vienna, he became fascinated by mast cells—enigmatic immune cells best known for their central role in allergic diseases. Philipp pursued a PhD in Immunology under the supervision of Erika Jensen-Jarolim and Eva Untermayr-Elsenhuber at the Medical University of Vienna, focusing on the molecular mechanisms underlying food allergy development.

Philipp then moved to the United States to join Steve Galli’s lab at Stanford University as a postdoctoral fellow, where he continued and expanded his research on mast cells and type 2 immunity. His work in the Galli lab addressed fundamental questions about the biological functions of allergic immune responses and led to the discovery of a surprising role for IgE antibodies and mast cells in adaptive immune protection against insect and reptile venoms.

Returning to Austria, Philipp joined Sylvia Knapp’s group at CeMM (the Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences) and the Medical University of Vienna as a senior postdoctoral researcher. There, he investigated antibacterial type 2 immune responses and demonstrated that the “allergy module”—mast cells and IgE antibodies—can contribute to host defense against pathogenic, toxin-producing bacteria.

Since 2023, Philipp has led an independent research group and, in 2024, was appointed a tenured Associate Professor at the Department of Medicine I at the Medical University of Vienna. His lab investigates the interplay between microbial infections and type 2 immune responses in barrier organs with the aim to better understand the long term consequences of inflammation for the development of future unrelated immune responses.