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| Bernd Bonnekoh, Otto-von-Guericke-University |
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Bernd Bonnekoh, born 1960 in Menden-Iserlohn/Germany, studied medicine (1978 to 1984), and absolved a resident training in dermatology and venereology (1978 to 1984), as well as a specialization in allergology (1990 to 1992), all at the University of Cologne. After his thesis as a medical doctor in 1985 he received an appointment as an assistant professor in 1990. From 1993 to 1996 B. Bonnekoh spent a clinico-experimental research stay at the departments of cell biology and dermatology of the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Tx. In 1996 he was appointed to an associate professorship connected to the vice chair position at the clinic of dermatology of the Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg (Germany). B. Bonnekoh is working as a clinician with special scientific interests in general dermatology (including dermatohistopathology) and immunodermatology focussing upon psoriasis and atopic dermatitis.
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Perspectives for Multi Epitope Ligand Kartography (MELK) for Detection of Diagnostic and Therapeutic Biomarkers in Skin diseases, Allergology and Beyond
Bernd Bonnekoh, Clinic for Dermatology, Otto-von-Guericke-University
Bernd Bonnekoh (1), Ansgar J. Pommer (2), Lars Philipsen (3), Raik Böckelmann (1), Harald Gollnick (1)
(1) Clinic for Dermatology, Otto-von-Guericke-University, (2) SkinSysTec GmbH, (3) MelTec GmbH & Co. KG, Magdeburg - Germany
We present a novel bioanalytical methodology called Multi Epitope Ligand Kartography (MELK) robot technology which basically represents an extension of multiplex immunophenotyping. The patented rationale of MELK consists in a repetitive three-step cycling process including 1) an initial incubation of a tissue section or cell preparation with a fluorophore-labeled tag (e.g. antibody), 2) a subsequent imaging of the fluorescence signal, and 3) a final soft bleaching. This process can be repeated up to at least 100 times with divergent tags. Resulting fluorescence images may be binarized with regard to internal and external positive and negative standards and overlaid by computational visualistic tools. This allows in an unprecedented manner to analyze the colocation of defined epitopes in microtopographic units defined by the pixel matrix of the CCD camera of the microscope. E.g. using a 20x objective magnification, such a microtopographic unit (i.e. a pixel) will correspond to a 450 nm2 area of the biologic specimen.
Given these basics of MELK robot technology, we have developed a special platform for analyzing in-situ-proteomics (i.e. toponomics) in skin tissue or blood specimens in the context of dermatological research. This was achieved by a close partnership as an university institution (Clinic for Dermatology, Otto-von-Guericke-University) and an industrial biotech company (SkinSysTec GmbH).
Until now we have initiated various projects aiming at the better understanding of the pathophysiology of common chronic, partly allergic skin diseases such as psoriasis and atopic dermatitis in order to find new treatment targets. A special aspect of our work is the creation of a new biological drug binding biochip assay which integrates a candidate biological drug after fluorophore-labeling into a MELK tag library for the purpose of a refined analysis of the drug´s binding sites. Another application field is diagnostics of skin cancer.
As a major future perspective our high-dimensional technology offers powerful additional options to conventional strategies of drug target identification and characterization.
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