Development of Adsorbents for the Therapy of Sepsis

This project deals with the development and characterization of a cell culture model for Gram-negative sepsis. The model is based on stimulation of monocytes with lipopolysaccharide and the subsequent stimulation of endothelial cells with the cell culture supernatant of the stimulated monocytes. With different read-out assays, such as the secretion of cytokines and the expression of surface adhesion molecules, the activation of the endothelium can be assessed. The model is potentially suited to identify new targets for sepsis therapy as well as to test the effect of modulation of defined mediators on endothelial activation.