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In the years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the effectiveness of government-ordered measures to contain the pandemic, such as regular testing and the wearing of medical masks, was repeatedly called into question. Through a large-scale analysis of viral genome data, a working group led by DZIF researcher Prof Alice McHardy at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) has now discovered that significantly fewer new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus entered Germany in connection with the introduction of certain measures such as the wearing of medical masks and free access to rapid antigen tests.

Dr. Chantal Bader is the first candidate of the Young AcademiXX program at Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS), a site of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in cooperation with Saarland University. After completing her PhD in the HIPS Department Microbial Natural Products, she spent just over two years as a postdoctoral researcher in Ben Shen's group at the Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology in Florida, USA. She has now returned to Saarbrücken and is laying the foundation for her future scientific career with her participation in the Young AcademiXX program. In this interview, she talks about her connection to HIPS, her plans for the future and how Young AcademiXX is helping her to put them into practice.

At the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig, four young scientists will start their work in late summer and fall 2024 to investigate resilience mechanisms of microbes and humans. As part of the MICROSTAR (Microbial Stargazing) project, Lina Herhaus, Martin Jahn, Milan Gerovac and Natalia Torow were recruited in a highly competitive process. Over an initial period of five years, their research groups will investigate cutting edge issues related to signal transmission in infections, the intestinal microbiome, bacteriophages and the development of immunity.

CRISPR-Cas systems, defense systems in bacteria, have become a plentiful source of technologies for molecular diagnostics. Researchers at the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI) in Würzburg have expanded this extensive toolbox. Their novel method, called PUMA, enables the detection of RNA with Cas12 nucleases, which naturally target DNA. PUMA promises a wide range of applications and high accuracy. The team published its results in the journal Nature Communications.

The huge community of microorganisms in our gut keeps us healthy. And when things go wrong, we get sick. And not just a little: Disorders of our microbiome could be the trigger for morbid obesity, diabetes, inflammatory bowel diseases and even depression or cancer. Dr Lisa Osbelt-Block knows this. She conducts research at the HZI in the ‘Microbial Immune Regulation’ research group headed by Prof Till Strowig and is fascinated by our little fellow inhabitants. In this episode of the HZI podcast InFact she talks about how our microbiome keeps our body healthy and what happens when it is not in order. She also talks about current research into the microbiome and how the findings can be used to treat diseases.

The lungs have a very complex structure, which makes it difficult to simulate them in the laboratory using human cell line models. As a result, researchers still rely on animal testing in preclinical studies to develop inhaled drugs. A research team led by Dr Nicole Schneider-Daum of the Department of Drug Delivery across Biological Barriers at the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) has succeeded in establishing a human lung cell line that is suitable for the development of in vitro models. Schneider-Daum's team was awarded the Saarland research prize "Alternatives to animal testing" for this achievement.