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Prof Markus Cornberg, a medical doctor by training, is the new Clinical Director of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig. Cornberg will also become director of the Centre for Individualised Infection Medicine (CiiM), a collaboration of the HZI and the Hannover Medical School (MHH). He is the successor to Prof Michael Manns, who resigned from both positions due to his inauguration as president of the MHH effective 1 January 2019.

Many common antibiotics are increasingly losing their effectiveness against multi-resistant pathogens, which are becoming ever more prevalent. Bacteria use natural means to acquire mechanisms that protect them from harmful substances. For instance against the agent albicidin: Harmful Gram-negative bacteria possess a protein that binds and inactivates albicidin. The underlying resistance mechanism has been investigated at atomic resolution by scientists from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) and the associated Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS). The scientists discovered that this protein not only binds the antibiotic, but also promotes its chemical modification. Concurrently, it promotes its own production such that it can inactivate albicidin even more efficiently. The results of this study have been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

The molecular biologist Dr Katherine Beckham has received the 2018 Jürgen Wehland Award. She is a scientist at the Hamburg branch of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), working in the research department run by Prof Matthias Wilmanns. Beckham is investigating special molecular tools of bacterial pathogens, through which germs deliver infectious proteins to the cells of its host. The Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig has granted the Jürgen Wehland Award, endowed with 5000 euros, for the seventh time, thus honouring junior researchers doing important work in infection research.

For researchers like Chase Beisel, the cryptic term CRISPR-Cas is much more than the sophisticated system used by bacteria to defend themselves against virus attacks: It is home to countless genetic engineering possibilities that Beisel hopes to exploit. His goal is to understand the diversity of CRISPR-Cas systems in order to be able to use them against genetic diseases or multi-resistant pathogens, for example. The social dimension of his research plays a decisive role for him: “CRISPR is a wonderful example of basic research that has already led to something that has enormous effects on society,” he says. “However, we must never neglect social exchange about gene-editing technologies such as CRISPR, because in the end our work is useless if society is not prepared to accept it.”

Scientists in Saarbrücken are on a mission to discover natural products from soil bacteria in order to develop these into new medicines for the treatment of infectious diseases. They are asking the public to join their efforts and become part of an ongoing citizen science project launched recently to improve access to regional microbial biodiversity.

Scientists from InSCREENeX GmbH and the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) have collaborated to develop a technology allowing cells from any tissue to be proliferated in a petri dish without losing the cells' tissue-specific properties. For example, this allows for newly discovered agents to be selectively tested in the cell culture and it provides the ability to examine organ-specific effects. In the meantime, the researchers have fine-tuned their process to the point where only a small number of cells is required as the starting material. Today, the Chamber of Industry and Commerce Braunschweig honoured this technology with the 2018 Technology Transfer Award. The award is endowed with 10,000 euros and goes to Dr Tobias May, Dr Roland Schucht and Dr Tom Wahlicht from InSCREENeX, as well as Prof Dagmar Wirth, who is the head of the "Model Systems for Infection and Immunity" research group at the HZI.