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On March 10, 2024, Prof. Tobias Welte, Director of the Clinic for Pneumology and Infectiology at Hannover Medical School (MHH), passed away unexpectedly at the age of 64. Welte was a long-standing close cooperation partner in joint research projects between the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) and the MHH, which resulted in numerous publications in renowned research journals.

Despite modern immunotherapies and existing drugs, lung cancer patients often develop resistance to treatment. To close this gap, an international team including Thekla Cordes, professor for cell metabolism at Technische Universität Braunschweig at the Braunschweig Centre for Systems Biology (BRICS) and head of the research group “Cellular Metabolism in Infection” at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI), as well as researchers from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies (USA) and Yale University School (USA), investigated potential targets for cancer therapies. Their results have been published in the journal Cancer Discovery.

New active substances for the treatment of resistant bacteria are needed more urgently than ever – yet only few candidates make the leap from research to clinical application. To facilitate precisely this transition, the US organization CARB-X provides targeted funding for advanced projects in antibiotics research. Saarbrücken researcher Anna Hirsch has now successfully acquired CARB-X funding for one of her innovative projects for the second time. The aim of the project, which is funded with up to 1.25 million US dollars, is to develop resistance-breaking antibiotics for the treatment of bacterial pneumonia.

The human cytomegalovirus, HCMV for short, lies dormant unnoticed in the body of most people for their entire lives. In immunocompromised individuals, however, the virus can cause life-threatening infections. It infects dendritic cells, a specific type of cell in the immune system. Although the majority of them are infected, only a few of them immediately execute the virus's genetic programme. Researchers at TWINCORE, Centre for Experimental and Clinical Infection Research, have now been able to show which signalling pathways of the innate immune system the virus is targeting in order to have itself produced by the host cells. They have published their findings in the journal Nature Communications. The TWINCORE is a joint institution of Hannover Medical School (MHH) and the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig.

The diversity of bacterial species in the gut is greatly reduced in people with a Western lifestyle compared to those following a traditional lifestyle and typically consuming fresh unprocessed foods. Such distinction is particularly profound for Segatella, a group of bacterial species belonging to the Prevotellaceae family. Now an international research team led by Prof. Till Strowig from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in cooperation with the Leibniz Institute DSMZ-German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures GmbH, the University of Trento (Italy) and the University Hospital Essen has succeeded in cultivating and characterizing Segatella bacteria and establishing their roles in human health in depth. Not only did they discover new Segatella species, but they were also able to show that men who practiced sex with men have a significantly higher Segatella carriage, the diversity of which resembles that of non-Western populations. The results were published in the journals Cell Host & Microbe and Cell Reports Medicine.

Tuberculosis and malaria are among the deadliest infectious diseases worldwide and are increasingly spreading, not least due to climate change. In both cases, antimicrobial resistance renders established active substances ineffective. To ensure that effective drugs are still available in the future, researchers at the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) are working together with Evotec, a leading company for drug research and development, on resistance-breaking anti-infectives based on natural products. The research project of the team led by Prof. Rolf Müller now receives 3.1 million euros in funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In addition, the HIPS has been accepted as a member of the renowned "Tuberculosis Drug Accelerator".