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The current outbreak of the Mpox virus originated in Central Africa. A first case has now been discovered in Europe. The WHO has declared the highest alert level. In an interview with Helmholtz, Fabian Leendertz, Director of the Helmholtz Institute for One Health (HIOH), puts the events in context.

The protective effect of established COVID-19 vaccines is initially very robust, but wanes relatively quickly. This limitation imposes a need for periodic booster shots, which drives vaccine hesitation. In contrast, an innovative vector vaccine developed at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) presents a compelling alternative. It elicits prolonged immune response in animal models, and maintains its efficacy over extended time. The concept employs an animal cytomegalovirus (MCMV; murine cytomegalovirus) as the vector that expresses and delivers the coronavirus spike protein information. Crucially, this vector poses no threat to humans, enhancing the vaccine's safety profile.

Modern cutting-edge research generates enormous amounts of data, presenting scientists with the challenge of visualizing and analyzing it. Researchers at the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI) in Würzburg and the Technical University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt (THWS) have developed a tool for visualizing large data sets. The sCIRCLE tool allows users to explore single-cell analysis data in an interactive and user-friendly way. Their results have been published in the journal NAR Genomics and Bioinformatics.

Hair follicle infections are often difficult to treat because bacteria settle in the gap between hair and skin, where it is difficult for active substances to reach them. In order to investigate this scenario more closely in the laboratory, researchers from the Department of Drug Delivery Across Biological Barriers at the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) have now developed a model with human hair follicles embedded in a matrix produced using 3D printing. In the future, this model can be used to test the effectiveness of new drug candidates against corresponding pathogens directly on human follicles. The team has published their results in the journal ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering.

In the years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the effectiveness of government-ordered measures to contain the pandemic, such as regular testing and the wearing of medical masks, was repeatedly called into question. Through a large-scale analysis of viral genome data, a working group led by DZIF researcher Prof Alice McHardy at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) has now discovered that significantly fewer new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus entered Germany in connection with the introduction of certain measures such as the wearing of medical masks and free access to rapid antigen tests.

Dr. Chantal Bader is the first candidate of the Young AcademiXX program at Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS), a site of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in cooperation with Saarland University. After completing her PhD in the HIPS Department Microbial Natural Products, she spent just over two years as a postdoctoral researcher in Ben Shen's group at the Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology in Florida, USA. She has now returned to Saarbrücken and is laying the foundation for her future scientific career with her participation in the Young AcademiXX program. In this interview, she talks about her connection to HIPS, her plans for the future and how Young AcademiXX is helping her to put them into practice.