On the trail of a mysterious childhood disease—The story of Ace and research into PIMS
Tilmann Kallinich and Mir-Farzin Mashreghi in Leibniz Magazine
In Leibniz Magazine, Fabian Zapatka tells the story of six-year-old Ace Jaite, representing many children with Pediatric Inflammatory Multisystem Syndrome (PIMS). Ace is one of the young patients who Prof. Dr. Tilmann Kallinich from Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the German Rheumatology Research Center Berlin (DRFZ), a Leibniz Institute, has been treating for five years. Together with PD Dr. Mir-Farzin Mashreghi, Deputy Scientific Director at DRFZ, he has uncovered the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying this serious disease.
The article describes the story of six-year-old Ace Jaite, who in early 2022 suffered severely from inflammatory shock triggered by PIMS. PIMS occurs primarily as a result of COVID-19, causing children’s immune systems to overreact and attack organs such as the heart and kidneys. After several visits to the emergency room and a deterioration in his health, Ace was admitted to the intensive care unit at Charité, where he was diagnosed in critical condition.
Tilmann Kallinich, Professor of Pediatric Rheumatology at Charité, recognized early on that this could be PIMS. However, the mechanism of the disease, which dysregulates the immune system and leads to multiple organ failure, was still largely unknown. Mir-Farzin Mashreghi works closely with Tilmann Kallinich and helped to identify specific markers that are characteristic of PIMS patients through cell analyses of the young patient. In particular, elevated TGFβ levels were identified as an indicator of the disease.
PIMS is triggered by a dysregulated immune response in which the immune system attacks the body’s own organs. In severe cases, such as Ace’s, the disease leads to acute organ failure, which could only be treated with intensive medical care and early diagnosis. Thanks to the expertise of Kallinich and Mashreghi and targeted therapy, Ace was ultimately saved. Ace Jaite has now made a full recovery and has no long-term injuries from the disease.
Key role of TGFß and EBV in PIMS
In 2025, the underlying mechanism of the disease was published by Kallinich and Mashreghi in the journal Nature, representing an important scientific breakthrough. The authors discovered that the messenger substance TGFβ plays a crucial role in the dysregulation of the immune system. At the same time, the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is reactivated, leading to an extreme overreaction of the immune system and causing organ damage
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Foto: Fabian Zapatka
