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Displaying results 31 to 40 of 73.
Genome Mining for Secondary Metabolites
The misuse of antibiotics on a global scale has led to an ever-growing antibiotic resistance crisis. Novel antimicrobial compounds are urgently needed. Microorganisms are considered to be one of the most prolific sources for natural product drugs including antibiotics. Developing novel genome mining approaches to harness the potential of the underexplored biosynthetic gene pathways and discover novel microbial natural products, is a potential antibiotic resistance crisis mitigation path. This group is located at the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) .
Experimental Infection Research
If we are attacked by a virus, the immune system reacts within a matter of hours. Highly specialized immune cells recognise the pathogen and release highly efficient messengers, which activate the immune system. These messengers include the interferons, which ensure that individual host cells are mildly infected . At the same time, interferons can also influence the course of the immune response and the memory of the immune system. Without these messengers virus infections - which we normally overcome almost unnoticeably - become fatal within just a few days. The group Experimental Infection Research is based at the TWINCORE in Hannover.
Evolutionary Community Ecology
Humans are increasingly part of these interaction networks and pathogen transmission from animals to humans is occurring at increasing rates. Indeed, emerging zoonotic disease are an increasing threat to human health and most of these diseases have their origins in wildlife. Microorganisms and their associated diseases also influence animal populations’ persistence and conservation, with some spilling over to animals from humans as well. The research group ‘evolutionary community ecology’ explores how the changing composition of animal communities has cascading impacts on their microbial communities, diseases, and rates of transmission, including to humans. The department is located at the Helmholtz Institute for One Health .
Epidemiology and ecology of antimicrobial resistance
Due to the interconnectedness between humans, animals and the environment, as well as the rapid potential for antimicrobial resistance to spread between bacterial species, we need a One Health approach to adequately address the threat of antibiotic resistance. This department is based at the Helmholtz Institute for One Health .
Single-cell Analysis
Pathogenic bacteria can reside in a mammalian host for a life-long period and chronic carriers form a reservoir leading to recurrent infections. Despite the importance of chronic infections for public health, how a subset of pathogens escape the host’s immune surveillance and how the host contains the spread of bacteria are still poorly understood. Scientists within the Single-Cell Analysis group develop and use single-cell transcriptomics and computational approaches to decipher the microenvironments of individual pathogens and ultimately their functional consequences on infection outcome. This group is located at the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI).
Dynamics of Respiratory Infections
Several chronic inflammatory diseases of the lung have been recently associated with alterations in the composition of the airway microbiome. Moreover, the lung microbiota can be classified according to its predominance either of proinflammatory bacteria, such as strains from the genera S taphylococcus, Pseudomonas , and Haemophilus or of low-stimulatory bacteria from genera like Prevotella, Streptococcus , and Veillonella . Moreover, it is already known that the commensal lung microbiota can influence host immune system activation by producing numerous structural ligands and metabolites such as lipopolysaccharide, peptidoglycan, and secondary metabolites. However, the interaction between the lung microbiota and the airway epithelium, as well as their interactions with pulmonary pathogens, are not well understood.
Flow Cytometry and Cell Sorting
Our organism is made of many different cells that are specialized to perform specific tasks. As long as they work together in the collective, we will stay healthy – do they change or are they changed by pathogens, we become unbalanced and sick. The Flow Cytometry and Cell Sorting platform provides the instrumentation and expert knowledge for the phenotypic identification and functional analysis of cells at the single cell level.
Compound Profiling and Screening
The World Health Organization (WHO) considers the spread of microorganisms which are resistant to the most common antibiotics an increasing threat to the well-being of the world population. Not only is the number of patients increasing whose infectious disease can no longer be treated, but also in some circumstances patients with other severe diseases will not be treated if the therapy is accompanied with suppression of the immune system and thus, an increased risk of infection. Thus, new active agents for the treatment of infectious diseases are urgently needed, as well as the responsible use of existing antibiotics. Prerequisites for the discovery of new drugs are relevant biological screening assays together with compound libraries of broad chemical diversity. We perform primary screens, based either on own protocols or on protocols developed by cooperation partners and transferred to our infrastructure. In cooperation with partners we also perform secondary assays to optimize first primary hits.
Chemical Biology of Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates and glycoconjugates belong to the three major classes of biopolymers. Complex carbohydrates play important roles in biological recognition processes that are represented by the presence of dense glycoconjugate layers on cells known as the glycocalyx. Despite their importance, the study of carbohydrates suffers from limited methods for their synthesis and analysis contrary to nucleic acids or proteins. This group is located at the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS).
Chemical Biology
In their ongoing quest for new therapies against pathogens, scientists are focusing primarily on chemical agents. Discovering new bioactive compounds, characterising their functionality and optimising their properties are the three main goals of the Department of Chemical Biology (CBIO) at the HZI.
