Newsroom

On her visit to Saarland on 11 June, 2019, the Federal Minister of Education and Research Anja Karliczek informed herself about the current profile and areas of research at the Saarland University, and in particular about the further development of the scientific focus of NanoBioMed with special involvement of the HIPS. She spoke with the director of the institute, Prof Rolf Müller, and the president of the university, Prof Manfred Schmitt, and the Prime Minister of Saarland, Tobias Hans, about specific options for the future development of the HIPS and Saarland University in the field of pharmaceutical drug research. The current challenges facing infection research were a particular focus. The HIPS is a branch of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig, operated in close collaboration with Saarland University.

The focus will be on the well-being of patients and protection of their privacy. The new Helmholtz Medical Security, Privacy and AI Research Center (HMSP) brings together researchers from the fields of IT security, data protection, artificial intelligence and medicine. Together they will develop solutions for individualised medicine, among other projects.

Markus Cornberg, a medical doctor by training, is the new Clinical Director of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) and heads the Centre for Individualised Infection Medicine (CiiM) in Hannover. He took up this role on 1 January 2019, succeeding Michael Manns, who has taken over the presidency at Hannover Medical School (MHH). In an interview, Cornberg talks about the initial steps towards individualised infection medicine that takes into account the specific characteristics of individual patients or patient groups.

About 70 million people worldwide are chronically infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV). Possible consequences include hepatitis, cirrhosis and liver cancer, but the disease often remains undetected for long periods of time. Thomas Pietschmann of the TWINCORE in Hannover investigates the virus and works on the development of a vaccine that could prevent HCV infections in the future.

Alice McHardy reveals how she came to bioinformatics and what fascinates her about her work with massive volumes of data.