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Marcus Maurer is a Section Head in Dermatology, based at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin.
Marcus Maurer’s website.

F1000: What are you working on now?

I am—and I have been for years—a mast cell fan. My first project was to characterize the role of mast cells in hair growth, which seems like quite an exotic topic. Then I got into mast cell-driven diseases, and a little later on into the physiological functions of mast cells. Finally, my team and I started to look at the benefits of having this cell. It’s a very interesting cell, first of all because it’s very dangerous. It’s probably the most dangerous cell in the human body: it can kill you faster than any other cell, by anaphylactic shock. It also plays a major role in many diseases, mainly chronic inflammatory ones. For the longest time, we didn’t know much about what this cell does to protect us from disease or to keep us happy.That, for me, is the most interesting question regarding this cell—to try to find out why evolution let us keep mast cells, given that they are so annoying and dangerous.

Recently we’ve looked at many different hypothetical functions of mast cells; many of them involve a role in innate immunity, raising protective immune responses to pathogens. This is now widely held to be a major function of mast cells: to protect us when we are being attacked by microbes that want to do us harm. Another interesting topic is the role of mast cells in controlling the effects of toxins and venoms: the proteases that mast cells make (and many of them are made only by mast cells) are very potent in destroying toxins, such as those present in the venom of snakes, scorpions, the gila monster, spiders or honeybees.

F1000: What approach do you take?

Our favourite model is a mouse that doesn’t have any mast cells. The cool thing about these mice is that we can look at differences between them and normal mice in disease models. When we find a difference between mast cell-deficient mice and normal mice, we then try to figure out how mast cells are involved in this disease. We can ask, for example, how are they activated, and what mediators do they release in order to do what they do?

F1000: Who has influenced you?

Throughout my career, I was very lucky and grateful to have had excellent teachers and mentors. My first teacher and thesis supervisor was Ralf Paus, a passionate scientist and dermatologist now working in Manchester and Lübeck. I then trained at Harvard with Steve Galli, a top pathologist and leading mast cell expert who is now at Stanford. After my return to Germany, my team and I at the department of dermatology in Mainz greatly benefited from the guidance of our department head, Jürgen Knop, a top immunologist and great mentor.

It’s important that even as you advance in your scientific and academic career, you still have role models to look up to and to ask for advice.

F1000: What are your plans and hopes for your area of research?

I’ve come to realize that if you want to make an impact as a scientist, you have to see what problems are important and work towards solutions that make a real difference in patients’ lives. This is why, after years of very basic research, we chose, some years ago, a more translational approach. In Berlin, we now have a very nice set-up that allows us to work with mast cells in the lab, and at the same time, treat patients with mast cell diseases in the clinic. From our many patients with mast cell-driven diseases such as urticaria and mastocytosis, we learn about their unmet needs and unanswered questions. We can then take these questions to the lab and work on them to find solutions. On the other hand, our projects in the lab are aimed at finding answers that could lead to the development of better treatment options for our patients in the clinic.

F1000: What’s the most interesting unanswered question in your field?

I really want to know how mast cells can be good and bad at the same time. What drives them to initiate disease, and what makes them bring on beneficial reactions? What we need to figure out is how mast cells are primed and modulated, and what is responsible for their pathological effects and physiological functions. Once we identify the mast cell’s on and off switches–and of course find ways to control them–we could use those switches to down-regulate their bad effects and to enhance or improve their good effects.

F1000: Do you have any advice for young people starting out in science?

It’s always good to question, double check and control your findings. Also, question any dogma. Think outside the box and take another look at your mistakes, at things that went wrong. This helps you to get better, and sometimes, the results of an experiment gone wrong can teach you more than getting the results you expected. Stay focused, and try to really get to the bottom of the problem that interests you. Don’t give up too early. Don’t accept explanations that are too simple. Good science leads to new, important questions. The questions that emerge from your findings may be your most important results if you continue to look for answers.

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Listen to Marcus talk about his scientific inspiration:
I really got into [science] by accident. It’s a little bit like a disease you catch

(Download the MP3 if you don’t have the Quicktime plugin.)