Dr. Anne Wolf receives sponsorship award from the Freifrau von Nauendorf Foundation

Dr. Anne Wolf, a young scientist at the Chair of Experimental Immunology of the Eye at the Department of Ophthalmology at the University Hospital Cologne, has been awarded this year’s Freifrau von Nauendorf Foundation Prize in the amount of 10,000 euros. The aim of the prize is to support research, diagnosis and therapy in the field of retinal diseases. The foundation was established in Wiesbaden in 2001 by the founder Anneliese Freifrau von Nauendorf, who was blind from age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

The foundation’s jury awarded the prize in recognition of Dr. Wolf’s work on identifying microglial immune mechanisms and target structures to optimize adeno-associated virus (AAV)-based gene therapies for retinal degeneration. She presented her work at a lecture at the Wiesbaden Press Club and accepted the award.

Dr. Wolf’s work addresses an important and current problem in treatment based on AAV. Under certain conditions, AAV vectors can trigger an undesired immune reaction in the eye and consecutive inflammatory processes, which have a negative impact on the treatment effect. Preliminary data from the Cologne research group indicate that resident microglial cells play a decisive immunological role here. Dr. Wolf will use the mouse model to investigate the significance of microglia for the immune response following local AAV injection. This systematic analysis should lead to a deeper understanding of the immunological processes in the eye and contribute important findings to the further development of AAV-based gene therapy.