Iris Gratz PhD

Iris Gratz received her PhD in Immunology from the University of Salzburg, Austria. She then trained as a postdoctoral fellow with Prof Johann Bauer at the EB House Austria at the University Hospital Salzburg, where she started her research on immune regulation of the skin. At the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), she further trained with Prof Abul Abbas, an internationally renowned expert in immune tolerance and autoimmunity. In 2012, Iris Gratz, became Junior Faculty at UCSF and in 2014 she joined the junior faculty of the University of Salzburg.

The principal goal of her research is to investigate the mechanisms of immune regulation in peripheral tissues. Her group is specifically interested in the biology of tissue resident regulatory T cells and their role in inflammatory settings, such as skin autoimmunity and skin gene therapy (of patients with Epidermolysis bullosa). Iris Gratz’s group develops and employs novel mouse models, including humanized mouse models, to elucidate the role of regulatory T cells in tissues, define the requirements for their generation, recruitment and maintenance in the target tissue. The long-term goal is to develop approaches to manipulate antigen-specific immune responses therapeutically.