Projects

Antibiotic resistance is increasing at an alarming rate worldwide. New treatment options are urgently needed. Due to their specificity for certain bacteria, phages represent a conceivable alternative or supplement to antibiotics. The specificity of phages, but also the fact that they have no toxic ...

In many infections, even proper antibiotic treatment does not lead to the expected therapeutic success. In the case of treatment with antibiotics, the doctor usually first decides which antibiotic to prescribe based on the type of infection. If resistance to the antibiotic already prescribed is ...

While our understanding of the immune response to malaria improves, an efficient malaria vaccine remains elusive. We intend to use blood stage attenuated parasites which can be transmitted through mosquitoes as tools to dissect human responses to malaria parasites and as a novel vaccination strategy ...

The project deals with the epidemiology of Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli, the most common acute foodborne diarrhoeal pathogens in humans worldwide. In addition to acute diarrhoeal diseases, these bacteria may also be involved in chronic inflammatory bowel diseases in humans. Antibiotic ...

Almost every second person worldwide is infected with the pathogenic bacterium Helicobacter pylori that causes chronic gastritis. In about 15 percent of infected individuals, gastric inflammation leads to peptic ulcers, and in one to two percent even to stomach cancer. Timely detection and treatment ...

The human immune system can effectively prevent and control viral infections. While many viruses can be neutralized and eliminated from the human body, other viruses persist after infection. However, they are often controlled throughout the entire human lifespan (e.g. certain herpes viruses like CMV ...

Hematological stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is one of the most important treatments for haematological malignancies. Two major complications after stem cell transplantations are the development of graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) and the reactivation of the human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), which ...

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a hospital-acquired pathogen that causes difficult-to-treat infections, especially when caused by antibiotic-resistant isolates. There is a high unmet medical need, particularly for pneumonia, which often progresses to severe disease with high morbidity and mortality ...

Organ transplant patients usually have to take immunosuppressive drugs for the rest of their lives to prevent their bodies from rejecting the organs. This therapy suppresses the physiological immune response to tumors and infections. The therapeutic goal for this patient group is to achieve an ...

There are a number of factors responsible for the development of antibiotic resistance. So far, the interactions between pathogens and the complex microbial colonisation (microbiota) of the human body under the selection pressure of antibiotic treatment play a little studied and underestimated role ...