Our Research

The focus of our work is the study and investigation of pathogens which are medically relevant or can be used as models for researching infection mechanisms.

To the research topics

Our staff

Around 700 employees in research, administration and infrastructure, and about 140 visiting scientists from 40 different countries are employed at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research.

Our scientists pursue research to expand our knowledge of the fundamental mechanisms behind medically relevant infectious diseases.

To the open positions

The Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research

How do bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi make us sick? How does our immune system defend our body?

These are the questions we at the HZI want to answer. Our goal: To set up the basis for new diagnostic tools, new active agents and new therapies against infectious diseases.

3rd International HIPS Symposium

on 18 July 2013

on the Campus of the Saarland University

The HIPS SYMPOSIUM aims at bringing together renowed scientists and young investigators from three pharmaceutical communities: natural products, medicinal chemistry and drug delivery.

Event details

Feature

Life between species - zoonoses

Plague, salmonellosis, rabies, SARS, Lyme disease, Creutzfeld-Jakob disease, and avian flu are only a few of a host of pathogens that can readily transfer from animals to humans – and vice versa. In the US, their bite transmits Yersinia pestis from plague-infested meerkats to domestic cats that in turn pass the bacterium on to their human owners. A rabid dog infects its owner via its saliva; a tick that feeds on the blood of borrelia-infected wildlife can transmit the bacterium to humans through its bite; influenza-infected migratory birds infect poultry, which in turn pass the virus on to the poultry keeper.

To the zoonoses feature