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Even though we have been living with the COVID- pandemic for more than half a year, there are still many unanswered questions and major uncertainties regarding further infection. How will the epidemic develop in Germany – especially during the upcoming flu season and the cold autumn and winter months? Which strategies are particularly effective in containing the rising number of infections in Germany and worldwide? What has proved successful in recent months? What properties of SARS-CoV- are now understood? And what measures can be imposed for the population and the economy without restricting social life too much?

Many SARS-coronavirus-2 infections are mild or completely asymptomatic and are therefore not detected. This makes it difficult to assess pandemic trends, prevention strategies and mortality rates. Antibody studies can provide reliable information on what percentage of the population has already been infected with SARS-CoV-2. In a nationwide study, the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig is using regional samples to investigate the spread of antibodies against the novel coronavirus. The study examines about 3000 test persons in the urban region of Aachen from 9th September 2020.

The European Research Council (ERC) awards three scientists from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) with an ERC Starting Grant. The grants of up to 1.5 million Euros over a period of five years will be awarded to Jun Prof Neva Caliskan from the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI), Jun Prof Gregor Fuhrmann from the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) and Prof Yang Li from the Centre for Individualised Infection Medicine (CiiM).

Bacteria show a wide range of capabilities in withstanding antibiotic treatment or attack by our immune system, which are great challenges in infection research. Scientists at the Würzburg-based Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI), a site of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI), have developed a novel approach to reading the activity of hundreds of genes in an individual bacterium by sequencing its RNA. This groundbreaking work was just published in the journal Nature Microbiology. Using bacterial single-cell RNA sequencing it might be possible to elucidate the tricks bacteria use to develop resistance and close these loopholes with tailored drugs.

The new consortium CARE (Corona Accelerated R&D in Europe), supported by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) public-private partnership, announced its launch today to accelerate the discovery and development of urgently needed medicines to treat SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. With a grant totalling € 77.7 million, CARE is funded by cash contributions from the European Union (EU) and cash and in-kind contributions from eleven European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) companies and three IMI-Associated Partners. CARE is a five-year project bringing together 37 partners from Belgium, China, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US, and is led by VRI-Inserm (French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, Paris, France), Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, one of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson (Beerse, Belgium), and Takeda Pharmaceuticals International AG (Zurich, Switzerland). It integrates partners’ COVID-19 projects ongoing since February 2020.

Contrary to what has been generally assumed so far, a severe course of COVID-19 does not solely result in a strong immune reaction – rather, the immune response is caught in a continuous loop of activation and inhibition. Experts from Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, the University of Bonn, the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) and the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), along with colleagues from a nationwide research network, present these findings in the scientific journal Cell.