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The European Vaccines Hub (EVH) for Pandemic Readiness convened its annual consortium meeting at the Old University of the Marburg University, in Marburg, Germany, from May 19 to 21, 2026. The EVH is a pan-European public private partnership co-funded under the EU4Health program by the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA) on behalf of the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (DG HERA) of the European Commission. The Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) is an affiliated entity of the initiative and leads a work package on data management and AI.

Camilla Ciolli Mattioli’s workday often begins in a place that many group leaders gradually trade for their desks over the course of their careers: the laboratory. “At the moment, I still carry out many experiments myself,” says the head of the research group “Systems Microbiology of Intracellular Pathogens,” which was launched in February at the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI), a site of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in cooperation with the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU). Her lab is still being set up—with her right in the middle of it. “I work closely with my team and teach my lab members the necessary procedures,” she adds.

Researchers at the Helmholtz Institute for One Health (HIOH) have demonstrated that larvae of the greater wax moth (Galleria mellonella) are suitable as an alternative infection model for investigating the pathogenicity of bacteria on a larger scale. This could significantly reduce animal testing on mammals in the future. The results of the study were published in “The Lancet Microbe”.

Bacteria fend off invading viruses with molecular scissors that slice up viral DNA — a system called CRISPR that holds immense promise for gene editing therapies. But viruses can fight back with a molecular trick that stops the scissors from ever being made. Writing in the journal Nature, scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF, USA) in cooperation with researchers at the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI) and the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig describe how a viral “anti-CRISPR” protein sits on the bacteria’s protein assembly line — which is known as a ribosome — and jams it as a CRISPR protein named Cas12 begins to form. This triggers the ribosome’s quality control mechanism to destroy the emerging protein, along with its messenger RNA (mRNA) blueprint. HIRI is a site of the HZI in cooperation with the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU).

Have you ever wondered where our medicines actually come from? The answer often lies right beneath our feet, in the hidden world of bacteria and fungi. At Lower Saxony Day 2026, you can dive into the fascinating world of microorganisms with the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) and discover how nature helps us in the fight against infectious diseases and antibiotic resistance. The HZI will be represented at the state mile on Kurt-Schumacher-Straße at the booth of the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture (MWK). The public festival will take place from June 12–14, 2026, in Braunschweig.

The Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (Hrvatska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti (HAZU)) has announced the election of 32 new members to its ranks. Among the newly elected corresponding members is Prof. Luka Čičin-Šain, head of the department “Viral Immunology” at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI). Čičin-Šain studies how our immune system responds to widespread viruses and develops new vaccine technologies against viral diseases.