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A group of scientists are calling for a pan-European coronavirus action plan. Given the high numbers of cases and the new variants, they say, greater efforts to contain the virus are required across the whole continent. Case numbers must be reduced as quickly as possible, as this has strong advantages for society and economy. According to the paper published in the British medical journal The Lancet, the joint action of all European countries will make each national and local effort more effective.

A huge community of microorganisms lives on and in our body – the microbiota. It is often also referred to as the microbiome, although the term microbiome actually describes the genetic information of the microbiota. Microbiome research is a relatively young field of research. Many fundamental questions are still open, and the search for possible therapeutic approaches is still in its infancy. Bioinformaticians at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig, Germany, in cooperation with researchers from the Department of Biostatistics at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, USA, have now identified CRISPR regions of the human microbiome on the basis of the Human Microbiome Project (HMP1-II). These regions form part of the bacterial defence system against viruses and can provide an overview of past attacks. The scientists are making their extensive data resource available to microbiome research so that the interactions between viruses and bacteria can be explored further. The study, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), is published in the current issue of the journal Cell Host & Microbe.

Pathogenic bacteria are armed with a large arsenal of molecular weapons that help them infect their hosts. These virulence factors enable the bacteria to gain access to nutrients, to establish a niche for survival or simply to disable the immune system. Toxins are virulence factors that bacteria produce to damage their host. To do this, the toxins often have to travel long ways: first leaving the bacterium, finding and then penetrating specific host cells to finally find and alter their target molecules. A current study by researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig in collaboration with the University of Münster improves the understanding of the activity and delivery of an important virulence factor. The scientists solved the three-dimensional structure of the cytotoxic necrotizing factor (CNF) – a toxin found in different Gram-negative species – and discovered novel protein structures that are not or only very distantly similar to any previously investigated protein structures. The results facilitate the development of therapeutics that inhibit the toxin and were published in the EMBO Journal.

Currently, high numbers of infections with the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 are being recorded in many European countries. This leads to increased numbers of deaths and is a burden for society, health systems and the economy. An international initiative of scientists is calling for a European strategy to reduce the number of COVID-19 cases quickly and sustainably. The statement was written by several experts, including Prof Melanie Brinkmann, virologist at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig. The more than 300 signatories, including other HZI researchers, call for a strong, coordinated European response with clearly defined medium- and long-term goals. The strategy should aim to achieve and maintain low case rates across Europe.

SARS-CoV-2 infections pose a global threat to human health and a formidable research challenge. One of the most urgent tasks is to gain a detailed understanding of the molecular interactions between the virus and the cells it infects. It must also be clarified, whether these interactions favour the multiplication of the virus or - on the contrary - activate defence mechanisms. In order to multiply, SARS-CoV-2 uses proteins of the host cell. However, thus far no detailed information on the part of the human proteome - i.e. the total of all proteins occurring in human cells – that is in direct contact with the viral RNA existed. This void has now been filled. Scientists from the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI) Würzburg, the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) and the Broad Institute (Cambridge, USA) have succeeded in creating the first global atlas of direct interactions between the SARS-CoV-2 RNA and the proteome of the human host. The HIRI is a site of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig, Germany, in collaboration with JMU. In addition, the authors identified important regulators of viral replication. Dr Mathias Munschauer from HIRI and Professor Jochen Bodem from the Institute of Virology and Immunobiology at JMU were responsible for the study. They present the results of their work in the latest issue of the journal Nature Microbiology.

Prof Rolf Müller, Managing Director of the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS), has been awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize 2021 by the German Research Foundation (DFG) for his outstanding research achievements. The Leibniz Prize is the most highly endowed award regularly presented to scientists in Germany. The HIPS is a site of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig, Germany, in collaboration with Saarland University.