How immune cells communicate

A team led by Simon Haas has developed a technology to decode how immune cells talk to each other – revealing how our bodies respond to infections, how miscommunication can trigger autoimmune diseases, and why some people don’t respond to immunotherapies. The study was published in “Nature Methods.” 

A healthy immune system is trained to detect and destroy infections and cancer cells. This defense relies on complex cellular communication, with each type of immune cell playing a specialized role: recognizing pathogens, alerting other cells, and eliminating harmful invaders. But when communication between these cell types breaks down, the result can be a range of diseases.

In “Nature Methods,” an interdisciplinary team from the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH), the Max Delbrück Center, the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), the Heidelberg Institute for Stem Cell Technology and Experimental Medicine (HI-STEM), and Queen Mary University of London presents a new technology that allows researchers to “listen in” on this immune cell dialogue.

Predicting who will benefit from immunotherapy

Cancer cells often evolve ways to block or evade the immune system’s messaging pathways, allowing them to escape detection and grow unchecked. “Modern immunotherapies have transformed the treatment of certain cancers by restoring or enhancing communication between immune cells,” says Professor Simon Haas, senior author of the study.

Haas leads a research group focused on single-cell approaches to personalized medicine, a joint initiative of the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité, the Max Delbrück Center, and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. He also holds the Chair for Single Cell Technologies and Precision Medicine at the Precision Healthcare University Research Institute at Queen Mary University of London. His lab is based at the Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology of the Max Delbrück Center.

“But not all patients respond equally well to these therapies. So far, we’ve lacked reliable methods for predicting who will benefit the most,” adds Dr. Daniel Hübschmann, also a senior author and research group leader at HI-STEM and the German National Center for Tumor Diseases.

Laying the groundwork for tailored cancer treatments

Together, the researchers developed a technology that overcomes many of these challenges by improving our understanding of how immune cells communicate. This method makes it possible to measure millions of cell-to-cell interactions quickly and affordably – in both research labs and clinical settings.

Using the new technology, the team studied how immunotherapies behave and evolve over time, and how they affect communication between individual cells. Their findings show that this approach can help predict how patients will respond – laying the foundation for more personalized immunotherapies and informed treatment decisions.

The researchers also used the technology to detail, in high resolution, how immune cells interact during viral infections and autoimmune diseases. They created dynamic maps of immune cell networks that, for the first time, illustrate how the immune response is coordinated across different tissues.

The innovation was made possible through close interdisciplinary collaboration across medicine, computer science, and the life sciences. Key contributors were doctoral students and first authors Dominik Vonficht, Lea Jopp-Saile, Schayan Yousefian, and Viktoria Flore.

The team is now working with clinical partners to translate these insights into practice –aiming to better predict treatment outcomes and apply personalized therapies more precisely.                                                                                                       

Further information

Haas lab

Single cell approaches for personalized medicine

When blood cancer starts to spread

Literature

Dominik Vonficht, Lea Jopp-Saile, Schayan Yousefian, Viktoria Flore et al. (2025): Ultra-high-scale cytometry-based cellular interaction mapping. Nature Methods, DOI: 10.1038/s41592-025-02744-w

Max Delbrück Center

The Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association aims to transform tomorrow’s medicine through our discoveries of today. At locations in Berlin-Buch, Berlin-Mitte, Heidelberg and Mannheim, our researchers harness interdisciplinary collaboration to decipher the complexities of disease at the systems level – from molecules and cells to organs and the entire organism. Through academic, clinical, and industry partnerships, as well as global networks, we strive to translate biological discoveries into applications that enable the early detection of deviations from health, personalize treatment, and ultimately prevent disease. First founded in 1992, the Max Delbrück Center today inspires and nurtures a diverse talent pool of 1,800 people from over 70 countries. We are 90 percent funded by the German federal government and 10 percent by the state of Berlin.