Dr Sabrina Sofia Burgener

SNF Research Fellow

Institute for Molecular Bioscience

+61 7 344 36168

s.burgener@imb.uq.edu.au

Researcher biography

Dr. Sabrina Sofia Burgener is Deputy Lab Head of the Disease Modelling Team of the Inflammasome Laboratory and Senior Research Fellow in Immunology at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at The University of Queensland.

As Deputy Lab Head of the Inflammasome Group at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), Dr. Burgener is an innate immunologist with over 12 years of cross-functional expertise in immunology, disease modelling and molecular biology. My research program focuses on a holistic understanding of inflammasome signalling in pre-clinical disease models to harness the development of new diagnostics and anti-inflammatory therapeutics.

After obtaining her professional training as a Veterinary Technician, they completed their PhD in Immunology under supervision of A/Prof. Benarafa at the University of Bern, Switzerland in 2017.

For their work on the cytoprotective role of Serpinb1 and Serpinb6 in neutrophils, they received several international awards such as the Society of Leukocyte Biology Presidential Award in 2016 and the Dr. Lutz Zwillenberg Prize in 2020. Before joining the Inflammasome Lab in 2019, Dr. Burgener had been a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute of Virology and Immunology at the Vetsuisse Faculty of the University of Bern. In the Schroder lab, Dr. Burgener leads a team of Honour and PhD students, interested in understanding how caspase-1 drives inflammatory diseases and if targeting caspase-1 in diseases such as metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis, and whether inhibition of caspase-1 comes at the cost of increased susceptibility to infection. Their research is funded by SNSF Postdoc Mobility Fellowship (2020-2022) and the Novartis Foundation for Medical-Biological Research Fellowship (2022-2023) and two ARC Discovery Projects (2025-2027).

Publications

Journal Articles (20)

Conference Papers (2)

Journal Articles

Holley, Caroline L., Monteleone, Mercedes, Fisch, Daniel, Libert, Alexandre E. S., Ju, Robert J., Choi, Joon H., Condon, Nicholas D., Emming, Stefan, Crawford, Joanna, Lawrence, Grace M. E. P., Coombs, Jared R., Lefevre, James G., Bajracharya, Rinie, Lahoud, Mireille H., Yap, Alpha S., Hamilton, Nicholas, Stehbens, Samantha J., Kagan, Jonathan C., Ariotti, Nicholas, Burgener, Sabrina S. and Schroder, Kate (2024). Pyroptotic cell corpses are crowned with F-actin-rich filopodia that engage CLEC9A signaling in incoming dendritic cells. Nature Immunology, 26 (1) eaas8995, 1-35. doi: 10.1038/s41590-024-02024-3

Pizzuto, Malvina, Monteleone, Mercedes, Burgener, Sabrina Sofia, Began, Jakub, Kurera, Melan, Chia, Jing Rong, Frampton, Emmanuelle, Crawford, Joanna, Oliveira, Monalisa, Kenney, Kirsten M., Coombs, Jared R., Yamamoto, Masahiro, Man, Si Ming, Broz, Petr, Pelegrin, Pablo and Schroder, Kate (2024). Cardiolipin Inhibits the Noncanonical Inflammasome by Preventing LPS Binding to Caspase 4/11 to Mitigate Endotoxemia in Vivo. BioRxiv. doi: 10.1101/2024.10.14.618051

Holley, Caroline L., Emming, Stefan, Monteleone, Mercedes M., Mellacheruvu, Manasa, Kenney, Kirsten M., Lawrence, Grace M.E.P., Coombs, Jared R., Burgener, Sabrina S. and Schroder, Kate (2024). The septin modifier, forchlorfenuron, activates NLRP3 via a potassium-independent mitochondrial axis. Cell Chemical Biology, 31 (5), 962-972.e4. doi: 10.1016/j.chembiol.2024.04.012

Thygesen, Sara J., Burgener, Sabrina S., Mudai, Prerna, Monteleone, Mercedes, Boucher, Dave, Sagulenko, Vitaliya, Schroder, Kate and Stacey, Katryn J. (2024). Fluorochrome‐labeled inhibitors of caspase‐1 require membrane permeabilization to efficiently access caspase‐1 in macrophages. European Journal of Immunology, 54 (5) 2350515, e2350515. doi: 10.1002/eji.202350515

Coombs, Jared R., Zamoshnikova, Alina, Holley, Caroline L., Maddugoda, Madhavi P., Teo, Daniel Eng Thiam, Chauvin, Camille, Poulin, Lionel F, Vitak, Nazarii, Ross, Connie M., Mellacheruvu, Manasa, Coll, Rebecca C., Heinz, Leonhard X., Burgener, Sabrina S., Emming, Stefan, Chamaillard, Mathias, Boucher, Dave and Schroder, Kate (2024). NLRP12 interacts with NLRP3 to block the activation of the human NLRP3 inflammasome. Science Signaling, 17 (820) abg8145, eabg8145. doi: 10.1126/scisignal.abg8145

Chan, Amy H., Burgener, Sabrina S., Vezyrgiannis, Kassandra, Wang, Xiaohui, Acklam, Jadie, Von Pein, Jessica B., Pizzuto, Malvina, Labzin, Larisa I., Boucher, Dave and Schroder, Kate (2023). Caspase-4 dimerisation and D289 auto-processing elicit an interleukin-1β-converting enzyme. Life Science Alliance, 6 (10) e202301908, 1-11. doi: 10.26508/lsa.202301908

Milner, Mark T., Lawrence, Grace M. E. P., Holley, Caroline L., Bodea, Liviu-Gabriel, Götz, Jürgen, Burgener, Sabrina S. and Schroder, Kate (2022). Isolation and culture of pure adult mouse microglia and astrocytes for in vitro characterization and analyses. STAR Protocols, 3 (2) 101295, 1-16. doi: 10.1016/j.xpro.2022.101295

Burgener, Sabrina Sofia, Brügger, Melanie, Leborgne, Nathan Georges François, Sollberger, Sophia, Basilico, Paola, Kaufmann, Thomas, Bird, Phillip Ian and Benarafa, Charaf (2021). Granule Leakage Induces Cell-Intrinsic, Granzyme B-Mediated Apoptosis in Mast Cells. Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, 9 630166, 1-12. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2021.630166

Lucas, Richard M., Liu, Liping, Curson, James E. B., Koh, Yvette W. H., Tuladhar, Neeraj, Condon, Nicholas D., Das Gupta, Kaustav, Burgener, Sabrina S., Schroder, Kate, Ingley, Evan, Sweet, Matthew J., Stow, Jennifer L. and Luo, Lin (2021). SCIMP is a spatiotemporal transmembrane scaffold for Erk1/2 to direct pro-inflammatory signaling in TLR-activated macrophages. Cell Reports, 36 (10) 109662, 1-20. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2021.109662

Milner, Mark T, Maddugoda, Madhavi, Götz, Jürgen, Burgener, Sabrina S and Schroder, Kate (2021). The NLRP3 inflammasome triggers sterile neuroinflammation and Alzheimer’s disease. Current Opinion in Immunology, 68, 116-124. doi: 10.1016/j.coi.2020.10.011

Burgener, Sabrina Sofia and Schroder, Kate (2021). Placental inflammasome signaling: protection for mother and baby. The Journal of Experimental Medicine, 218 (1) e20201738. doi: 10.1084/jem.20201738

Hilty, Markus, Wüthrich, Tsering M., Godel, Aurélie, Adelfio, Roberto, Aebi, Susanne, Burgener, Sabrina S., Illgen-Wilcke, Brunhilde and Benarafa, Charaf (2020). Chronic cigarette smoke exposure and pneumococcal infection induce oropharyngeal microbiota dysbiosis and contribute to long-lasting lung damage in mice. Microbial genomics, 6 (12) 000485, 1-14. doi: 10.1099/mgen.0.000485

Burgener, Sabrina Sofia and Schroder, Kate (2020). Neutrophil extracellular traps in host defense. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology, 12 (7) a037028, a037028-15. doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a037028

Ohayon, Delphine, De Chiara, Alessia, Pham My-Chan Dang,, Thieblemont, Nathalie, Chatfield, Simon, Marzaioli, Viviana, Burgener, Sabrina Sofia, Mocek, Julie, Candalh, Celine, Pintard, Coralie, Tacnet-Delorme, Pascale, Renault, Gilles, Lagoutte, Isabelle, Favier, Maryline, Walker, Francine, Hurtado-Nedelec, Margarita, Desplancq, Dominique, Weiss, Etienne, Benarafa, Charaf, Housset, Dominique, Marie, Jean-Claude, Frachet, Philippe, El-Benna, Jamel and Witko-Sarsat, Veronique (2019). Cytosolic PCNA interacts with p47phox and controls NADPH oxidase NOX2 activation in neutrophils. Journal of Experimental Medicine, 216 (11), 2669-2687. doi: 10.1084/jem.20180371

Burgener, Sabrina Sofia, Leborgne, Nathan Georges François, Snipas, Scott J., Salvesen, Guy S., Bird, Phillip Ian and Benarafa, Charaf (2019). Cathepsin G inhibition by Serpinb1 and Serpinb6 prevents programmed necrosis in neutrophils and monocytes and reduces GSDMD-driven inflammation. Cell Reports, 27 (12), 3646-3656.e5. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2019.05.065

Enzmann, Gaby, Adelfio, Roberto, Godel, Aurélie, Haghayegh Jahromi, Neda, Tietz, Silvia, Burgener, Sabrina, Deutsch, Urban, Wekerle, Hartmut, Benarafa, Charaf and Engelhardt, Britta (2019). The Genetic Background of Mice Influences the Effects of Cigarette Smoke on Onset and Severity of Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 20 (6) 1433, 1433. doi: 10.3390/ijms20061433

Baumgartner, Ulrich, Berger, Fabienne, Gheinani, Ali Hashemi, Burgener, Sabrina Sofia, Monastyrskaya, Katia and Vassella, Erik (2018). miR-19b enhances proliferation and apoptosis resistance via the EGFR signaling pathway by targeting PP2A and BIM in non-small cell lung cancer. Molecular Cancer, 17 (1) 44, 44. doi: 10.1186/s12943-018-0781-5

Martin, Katherine R., Pederzoli-Ribeil, Magali, Pacreau, Emeline, Burgener, Sabrina S., Dahdah, Albert, Candalh, Céline, Lauret, Evelyne, Foretz, Marc, Mouthon, Luc, Lucas, Bruno, Thieblemont, Nathalie, Benarafa, Charaf, Launay, Pierre and Witko-Sarsat, Véronique (2017). Transgenic mice expressing human proteinase 3 exhibit sustained neutrophil-associated peritonitis. The Journal of Immunology, 199 (11), 3914-3924. doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.1601522

Conference Papers

Burgener, Sabrina S., Baumann, Mathias, Basilico, Paola, Remold-O'Donnell, Eileen, Touw, Ivo P. and Benarafa, Charaf (2016). Myeloid conditional deletion and transgenic models reveal a threshold for the neutrophil survival factor Serpinb1. 9th General Meeting of the International-Proteolysis-Society (IPS), Penang, Malaysia, 03 - 08 October 2015. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GMBH. doi: 10.1515/hsz-2016-0132

Burgener, Sabrina, Pieles, Uwe and Köser, Joachim (2011). Activity and long-term stability of self-assembling enzymatic surface coatings. Annual Meeting of the Swiss Society for Biomaterials, Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland, 4 May 2011. Davos, Switzerland: AO Research Institute Davos.