Dimitra Zazara

Dimitra Zazara is a researcher at the Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), affiliated with the Medical Faculty of the University of Hamburg. Her work focuses on immunology, developmental origins of health and disease, cancer biology, and maternal-fetal interactions. She contributes to projects involving transplantation tolerance, fetal lung development, and the role of cytokines in liver and lung metastasis.

Research interests include understanding how prenatal environmental challenges (e.g., maternal stress, chemical exposures) influence immune system development and disease susceptibility in offspring. Her studies on IL-10, IL-22, and IL-22BP mechanisms in cancer progression have advanced knowledge of tumor immune evasion and metastasis pathways. She also investigates maternal antibody transfer and its impact on infant immunity against infections.

Zazara has pioneered mouse models to study spontaneous metastasis in colorectal cancer and developed protocols for lung and liver metastasis research. Her work bridges basic immunology with clinical applications, such as predicting asthma risk via fetal lung growth assessment and evaluating N-acetylcysteine’s role in mitigating drug-induced subfertility.

Her recent publications (2023–2025) emphasize sex-specific immune responses, the developmental origins of asthma, and the immunological consequences of prematurity. Collaborations span environmental health, pediatric medicine, and oncology, reflecting interdisciplinary approaches to translational research.