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Würzburg, January 10, 2023 — Do we simply ingest a diagnostic probiotic based on programmed ribonucleic acids to analyze the intestinal health from individual cells in the future? Researchers at the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI) and the Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) in Würzburg have developed a new technology they call TIGER. It allows complex processes in individual cells to be deciphered in vivo by recording past RNA transcripts. The findings were published in the journal Nature Biotechnology on 5 January 2023.

The 2022 Prize for Translational Infection Research of the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), endowed with 5,000 euros, goes to the DZIF scientist and epidemiologist Gérard Krause, head of the department "Epidemiology" at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig. Prof Krause researches the spread and clinical consequences of infectious diseases in the population and develops methods for their prevention, diagnosis and epidemic control. He has now been honoured with the DZIF Prize for his outstanding contributions in the field of translational infection epidemiology and in particular for the development of the epidemic management system SORMAS.

It is an unexpected discovery by scientists at the Helmholtz Institute Würzburg in cooperation with Benson Hill, Inc. (Missouri) and Utah State University in the U.S.: They have found a nuclease, which they dubbed Cas12a2, that represents an entirely new type of CRISPR immune defense. Unlike any other previously known nuclease of the CRISPR-Cas immune system, the source of "gene scissors", Cas12a2 destroys DNA to shut down an infected cell. The findings could lead to new CRISPR technologies for molecular biology diagnostics, among other applications, and were published today in the journal Nature.

The lawyer Christian Scherf will start as Administrative Director at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig on 1 January 2023. The former Chancellor of the Berufliche Hochschule Hamburg succeeds Silke Tannapfel, who left the HZI at the end of 2021 to join the Hessian Ministry of Science and the Arts. The position of Administrative Director was temporarily taken over by Elisabeth Gerndt, authorised signatory and head of the Finance and Controlling Department, until 31 December 2022.

Bacterial pathogens like Salmonella, Shigella, Listeria and many others exploit the protein skeleton of the cells they infect in order to spread throughout the host. However, how is this so-called cytoskeleton of host cells assembled and remodelled? Answers to this question can provide new approaches for combatting the causative agents of infectious diseases. An international team of researchers including HZI-members have now unravelled precise molecular mechanisms of activation of a key signalling unit in cytoskeletal remodelling. These recent results have just appeared in Science Advances.

The Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacterium is a widespread and dangerous hospital germ. It infects the respiratory tract and lungs and possesses natural resistance to numerous antibiotics. There is a search for so-called pathoblockers ongoing to be able to combat the bacterium better in the future. The focus here is not on killing the pathogen, as would be the case with antibiotic treatment, but rather on specifically eliminating or ameliorating its pathogenic effect. In an infection with Pseudomonas aeruginosa, the blue-green metabolic product pyocyanin, amongst other factors, contributes to the emergence of inflammatory processes and has a tissue-damaging effect. The infection would be less severe if the production of this substance could be prevented by means of a pathoblocker. In order to do this though, the exact molecular mechanisms responsible for the production of pyocyanin within the bacterial cell must first be understood. The research team led by Prof Wulf Blankenfeldt, who is the head of the "Structure and Function of Proteins" department at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig, recently discovered more details of the interplay of proteins that is required for production of pyocyanin applying modern protein biochemical analysis methods. In the course of this work, he has been able to clarify the central function of a protein called PqsE as a "moonlighter” in this process. The study is published in the current issue of Nature Communications.