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Displaying results 581 to 590 of 671.
Anti-infectives from Microbiota
The department of Prof Christine Beemelmanns focuses on the identification and functional analysis of novel anti-infective natural products from microbial communities. Co-cultivation studies as well as cell-based assays in combination with chemical-analytical and molecular-biological methods are used to evaluate and prioritize novel natural product producers. The department uses established and innovative metabolomic-, activity and genome-based methods to identify and determine the structure of the secreted natural products. Based on the isolated novel natural substances, the functional analysis and evaluation of their range of effects is carried out. This department is located at the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) .
Host-Pathogen-Microbiota Interactions
The importance of RNA in maintaining cellular physiology by controlling gene expression in response to intrinsic and external cues has long been underestimated. Now, numerous human diseases have been linked to RNA functioning. Likewise, we now know that bacterial pathogens harness a large suite of noncoding RNA molecules to adapt to environmental stress and to precisely regulate their virulence programs. In an era of antibiotic crisis, it is essential to discover alternative combat strategies against pathogenic bacteria — ideally ones that spare the beneficial microbial species. The high specificity of RNA molecules provides great potential for achieving these goals. This group is located at the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI).
Prof Dr Yang Li
RNA Synthetic Biology
RNA is a ubiquitous molecule of life that plays intimate roles in how cells function and make decisions. These same properties can be harnessed to create a new generation of engineering tools to further interrogate the properties of biology and control how cells behave. The “RNA synthetic biology” group aims to better understand the roles RNA plays in biology and to exploit these roles to improve how we study, diagnose, and treat infectious diseases in humans. This department is located at the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI).
RNA Biology of bacterial infections
The Vogel lab strives to chart the diversity of noncoding RNA functions and RNA-binding proteins in major bacterial pathogens and in the hundreds of different bacteria that make up the human microbiome. We develop new RNA deep sequencing-based techniques to capture the RNA world of any microbe, ideally at the single cell level. We want to understand how and why bacteria use RNA as a regulator during infection and exploit this knowledge to target pathogens and edit the microbiota with precision. Projects focus on several bacteria from our major workhorse Salmonella Typhimurium to anaerobic microbes that are associated with colorectal cancer such as Fusobacterium nucleatum . This Department is located at the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI).
Personalised Immunotherapy
Our motivation is to address fundamental questions of human immunology and translate them into personalized therapies and diagnostics. Specifically, our laboratory discovers new applications of antibodies and B cells to treat and prevent human infectious diseases. Effective vaccines against some viruses that escape antibody responses remain elusive. To tackle this challenge, we develop methods to better understand B cell responses, the cells that produce antibodies. We design tailored vaccines and provide novel solutions for infection diagnostics. This Department is located at the Centre for Individualised Infection Medicine ( CiiM ).
Nano Infection Biology
Viruses are nanoscale entities. Despite their size and low complexity, they efficiently enter host cells leading to infection and reprogramming of cellular functions. The critical processes involve only a handful of viral and cellular proteins. Yet this contact is critical for the outcome of infection and the cellular immune response. We look at these processes to understand which cellular processes are stimulated by viruses and how the host cell interprets an infecting virus at the molecular level. At the scale of single viruses, these processes, their dynamics and structural conditions remain mostly unclear. We thus use advanced microscopy techniques, which allow us to visualize viral and cellular nanostructures during the infection process.
Sebastian Borgert
Experimental Immunology
Immune cell populations are characterized by a high degree of heterogeneity to enable efficient and specialized responses to the diverse set of pathogens. This is particularly true for cells of the adaptive immune system, but also innate immune cell populations are heterogeneous and can adapt to different environmental conditions. Adaptation of immune cells is often associated with epigenetic alterations that lead to the fixation of gene expression patterns, finally resulting in cells with highly specialized fates, phenotypes and functional properties.
