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Fabian Leendertz, Director of the Helmholtz Institute for One Health (HIOH) in Greifswald, and his team have been working for more than a decade in the south of the Central African Republic, in the Dzanga Sangha Conservation Areas. As part of a close collaboration with the WWF of the Central African Republic, the HIOH supports the monitoring of the health status of wildlife in these protected areas, with a focus on lowland gorillas. Over the years, activities have been expanded to better characterize the interface between humans, animals and the environment in this extraordinary ecosystem.

Vaccinations do not always live up to what we would want them to do – so far, anyway. But they are still invaluable for our health and life in our communities.

On the World Day for Laboratory Animals April 24, 2023, special attention is paid to the use of animals for research and development of products for humans. In drug research, among other areas, extensive animal testing is a firmly prescribed part of the approval process for new drugs. However, a reduction in the number of laboratory animals is increasingly in sight due to new approaches. At the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS), a site of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in collaboration with Saarland University, researchers are successfully developing alternative models and have already received awards for their work.

In their search for new substances that are effective against infectious diseases, researchers at the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) are extracting natural substances from soil bacteria. They are getting help from the public in the course of a citizen science project, which this year recruited citizen scientists from all over Germany on board the exhibition ship “MS Wissenschaft”.

Founded in April 2022, the Helmholtz Institute for One Health (HIOH) in Greifswald is a new branch of the HZI. What exactly does One Health mean? And why is this research approach particularly important today?