Molecular Bacteriology

Bacterial and Viral Pathogens

HZI Campus | TWINCORE

Hospital-acquired infections are a major challenge and cause suffering, incapacity and death. In many cases the pathogens are resistant to antibiotics and, therefore, very difficult to combat. Read more about how bacteria join forces and what the researchers can do to avoid that. The group Molecular Bacteriology is based at the HZI and the TWINCORE in Hannover.

Head

Prof Dr Susanne Häußler

Research Group Leader

+49 531 6181-3000 E-Mail

Our Research

Highly robust and versatile pathogens pose a serious threat to human health especially when they encounter patients with a compromised immune system. The increasing threat posed byPseudomonas aeruginosa infections, the accelerating development of multi-drug resistance in this organism and the failure of conventional antibiotic treatment strategies to eradicate chronic iofilm-associated infections is one of the greatest diagnostic and therapeutic challenges to modern medicine.

The department Molecular Bacteriology concentrates on the identification of genetic determinants of P. aeruginosa adaptation to a chronic, persistent state of infection, and of antibiotic resistance.

We apply data-driven microbial genomics approaches that are committed to develop innovative diagnostics and to strive for therapeutic solutions in patients suffering from infections due to problematic multi-drug resistant opportunistic pathogens as well as therapy refractory biofilm–associated infections. We perform genome-wide association studies on a sequence variation and gene expression dataset of a plethora of clinical Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates with the aim to advance molecular diagnostics for resistance profiling and to develop alternative therapeutic strategies to combat chronic biofilm-associated infections.