Jeroen den Dunnen is biomedical scientist specialized in immunology. The central theme of his research is ‘antibody-dependent inflammation’. In 2012 he discovered a new function of human antibodies: the induction of vigorous inflammation. While initially this new function seemed to be beneficial by providing host defense against pathogens, soon thereafter he discovered that antibody-dependent inflammation also has a ‘dark side’ by strongly promoting inflammation in the context of autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. During the COVID-19 pandemic, his team identified that this dark side of antibodies is one of the key events that drives pathology in severely ill COVID-19 patients. His expertise at the crossroads of infectious diseases and auto-immunity was instrumental for his recent work on the identification of specific autoantibodies in Long-COVID patients that cause disease symptoms. His current work focuses on identification of the role of these autoantibodies in the pathogenesis of Long-COVID, the development of an vivo model to study this disease, and the development of an objective diagnostic tool.
