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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.

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.

The new “Helmholtz International Labs” programme will fund research projects covering new medicines for infections, the effects of environmental impacts on health, and unique insights into the structure of matter. These international labs will receive up to 300,000 euros annually for an initial period of five years. This will increase collaboration between the Helmholtz Association and excellent research institutions worldwide, as part of the Association’s internationalisation strategy.

Trypanosoma brucei, which causes sleeping sickness, evades the immune system by repeatedly altering the structure of its surface coat. An international research team, including Dr Emmanuel Saliba from the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI) in Würzburg, has now sequenced the complete genome of the parasite and studied its 3D genome architecture. By that, the researchers have revealed crucial molecular aspects of the pathogen’s molecular strategy. The new findings appear in the leading science journal Nature. The HIRI is a location of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in cooperation with the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg.

The intestines can do more than just digest and absorb food. It has been known for a while that the intestines harbour a large part of the immune system and that intestinal bacteria are critically involved in the development and function of the intestinal immune system. The so-called gut-associated immune system ensures that we stay healthy and that our immune defence works properly. Researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) and its location in Würzburg, the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI), have now demonstrated how the initial microbial colonisation of the intestine immediately after birth determines the unique properties of gut-draining lymph nodes. Using single-cell technology, the scientists demonstrated on the transcriptome level that the scaffold cells of these lymph nodes are stably imprinted by the intestinal microbes during the first days after birth. Furthermore, they can memorize these properties for the lifetime of the host and continuously pass this information on to migrating immune cells. The scientists published their results in Nature Communications.

The initiative “Immunology & Inflammation” unifies efforts in immunological research within the Helmholtz Association. 23 working groups from five Helmholtz Centres are joining forces to address some of the most complex problems in today's immunology in ways that can only be explored in collaboration.