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Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) can cause severe lower respiratory tract infections, particularly in newborns and the elderly. How the virus manages to evade the immune system and what changes it triggers in infected cells had not yet been fully understood. Researchers from TWINCORE, Centre for Experimental and Clinical Infection Research, have now, together with interdisciplinary colleagues from Würzburg, Regensburg, Braunschweig and Hannover, demonstrated how the virus interferes with the genetic programme of respiratory cells, inhibits the immune response and disrupts cell function. They have published these findings in the journal Science Advances.

Environmental factors such as chemical pollutants, psychosocial stressors, and antibiotics as well as an unhealthy diet affect the human immune system and microbiome. They can contribute to an increased risk of infection, reduced immune resilience, and an altered immune response to vaccination. To date, there has been little research into how these factors affect viral immune responses in pregnant women as well as in children and adolescents. The aim of the EMVIC collaborative project is to close this gap using data from the LiNA mother–child cohort of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ). The project is coordinated by the UFZ with participation from the University of Leipzig, Hannover Medical School, and the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI), and will start on 1 July.

The Friends of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig and Technische Universität Braunschweig have awarded Prof. Dr. Craig M. Crews (Yale University, USA) the 2026 Inhoffen Medal. Craig Crews is regarded as a pioneer of innovative therapeutic approaches. The Inhoffen Medal recognises outstanding scientific achievements in the field of organic chemistry and drug discovery. The award ceremony took place as part of the 31st Hans Herloff Inhoffen Lecture at the Haus der Wissenschaft in Braunschweig on 11 June 2026.

The European Vaccines Hub (EVH) for Pandemic Readiness convened its annual consortium meeting at the Old University of the Marburg University, in Marburg, Germany, from May 19 to 21, 2026. The EVH is a pan-European public private partnership co-funded under the EU4Health program by the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA) on behalf of the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (DG HERA) of the European Commission. The Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) is an affiliated entity of the initiative and leads a work package on data management and AI.

Researchers at the Helmholtz Institute for One Health (HIOH) have demonstrated that larvae of the greater wax moth (Galleria mellonella) are suitable as an alternative infection model for investigating the pathogenicity of bacteria on a larger scale. This could significantly reduce animal testing on mammals in the future. The results of the study were published in “The Lancet Microbe”.

Bacteria fend off invading viruses with molecular scissors that slice up viral DNA — a system called CRISPR that holds immense promise for gene editing therapies. But viruses can fight back with a molecular trick that stops the scissors from ever being made. Writing in the journal Nature, scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF, USA) in cooperation with researchers at the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI) and the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig describe how a viral “anti-CRISPR” protein sits on the bacteria’s protein assembly line — which is known as a ribosome — and jams it as a CRISPR protein named Cas12 begins to form. This triggers the ribosome’s quality control mechanism to destroy the emerging protein, along with its messenger RNA (mRNA) blueprint. HIRI is a site of the HZI in cooperation with the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU).