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According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 10 million people contract tuberculosis (TB) each year—one of the deadliest infectious diseases worldwide. Treatment is lengthy and typically involves a combination of several antibiotics over many months. Particularly problematic are drug-resistant strains, against which the antibiotics used are only partially effective. New active compounds capable of overcoming existing resistance are therefore urgently needed. An international team led by the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS), the Institut Pasteur and Université Paris Cité has now demonstrated that the natural compound corramycin has a previously unknown effect against the tuberculosis pathogen and attacks it in a novel way. The researchers published their findings in the journal Advanced Science.

A single vaccination that provides protection for many years – so far, this has rarely been possible with vaccines against respiratory pathogens. Regular booster shots are often necessary. Dr. Henning Jacobsen and Casper Silvis from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) want to change that. As part of the ENDURIVAC project, they are developing a vaccine technology designed to provide long-lasting protection after just one dose. In this episode of the HZI podcast InFact, they explain how the technology works, why it is initially being used to develop a vaccine against RSV and whether booster shots could largely become unnecessary in the future.

Tonsillitis, bacterial pneumonia or a middle ear infection? For decades, we could easily treat infections like these with antibiotics. However, as bacteria increasingly display resistance to antimicrobial drugs, this status is being threatened. To safeguard us against a future without antibiotics, researchers at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) are exploring new treatment strategies. In the department “Chemical Biology” led by Prof. Mark Brönstrup, they are developing a pathoblocker that neutralizes a disease-causing toxin of Staphylococcus aureus without affecting bacterial growth. By disarming the pathogen instead of killing it, this approach could reduce the evolutionary pressure that drives the emergence of antibiotic resistance.

The ability of cells to move and change their positions is essential for various processes in our bodies. Immune cells move to sites of action, epithelial cells migrate during wound closure and neurons wire up their axons for signal transmission over long distances, while in metastasis, cancer cells employ their motile machineries to spread throughout our bodies. A team around Prof. Klemens Rottner heading the Research Group “Molecular Cell Biology” at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) has now shed new light on the central molecular interactions that accompany the formation of cytoskeletal networks at the forefront of migrating cells. Obtained insights pave the way for defining how such processes are changing in diseases and how they can potentially be modulated in the future. The results have just been published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.

The Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) is once again coordinating an international research and exchange project in fungal research through “Mycobiomics 2.0”. The recently launched project is funded as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action (MSCA) under the EU’s Horizon Europe research framework program and has a total budget of nearly 1.8 million euros. Mycobiomics 2.0 builds on the successful predecessor projects “GoMyTri” (2014–2018) and “Mycobiomics” (2021–2025), which were also coordinated by the HZI. The project focuses on the discovery of new anti-infective compounds to combat the increasing spread of antimicrobial resistance.

On September 17, 2026, the grand opening of the first expansion building of the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) took place on the campus of Saarland University. As part of the event, the groundbreaking ceremony for a second expansion building also occurred, with completion planned for 2029. Together with the existing building, the two new buildings are intended to provide space for up to 350 researchers to discover and develop new active ingredients to combat infectious diseases and beyond. The effective area of the two new buildings totals 6,000 m², distributed across laboratory, office, and seminar spaces. The construction projects are being funded with a total of 89.5 million euros, with 20 million provided by the federal government and the remaining funding coming from the state of Saarland and the European Union. The launch of this unprecedented expansion process at a Helmholtz Institute was an expansion resolution passed by the Budget Committee of the Bundestag in December 2020. HIPS is a site of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in collaboration with Saarland University.