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Joint pain, skin changes, extreme fatigue – and often no clear diagnosis for years: collagen diseases can present in a wide variety of ways and place a significant burden on those affected. In these rare inflammatory rheumatic conditions, the immune system attacks the body’s own tissues, particularly the connective tissue. As virtually any organ can be affected, collagen diseases can, in the worst-case scenario, become life-threatening. A project by Hannover Medical School (MHH), TWINCORE – Centre for Experimental and Clinical Infection Research, and the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) is now developing more accurate diagnoses for better treatments of collagen diseases.

A recent study from Hannover provides important insights into the understanding and future treatment of chronic hepatitis B. Researchers from the Hannover Medical School (MHH), the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI), TWINCORE and the Centre for Individualised Infection Medicine (CiiM) have demonstrated that a previously little-noticed group of immune cells – so-called γδ T cells – plays a central role in controlling the viral infection. The study was published in the journal Gut. TWINCORE and CiiM are joint institutions of the HZI and the MHH.

In March 2026, the Europe-wide doctoral program “UNLIMITED – Understanding Lipid Immunometabolism to Treat Disease” was launched under the leadership of the University Medical Center Mainz. In cooperation with the Technische Universität Braunschweig, a doctoral position will also be established in a research group at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI). The project is funded by the European Commission under the prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) with a total of 4.5 million euros and is one of 149 doctoral networks currently funded across the EU.

The CRISPR-Cas gene-editing system has long been the focus of research as a promising tool in genome editing. However, the emphasis has been on its underlying mechanisms and nucleases. In contrast, little research has examined how CRISPR-Cas systems have evolved and been optimized. In collaboration with the universities of Leipzig, Freiburg, and Michigan (USA), a research team at the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI) in Würzburg found an optimization mechanism in CRISPR-Cas13, providing insights into the evolution of these systems. The results were recently published in EMBO Journal.

Helmholtz researchers have created the first detailed protein map of specific sensory neurons that trigger pain. The team from the Max Delbrück Center and the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) determined the complete set of proteins in nerve cells and generated a high-resolution map of the cells. Their study, published in “Nature Communications,” will help researchers better understand the molecular mechanisms of chronic inflammatory pain and identify new drug targets.

Antimicrobial resistance is one of the greatest challenges to global health. Using an innovative high-throughput method, researchers from the Department “Epidemiology and Ecology of Antimicrobial Resistance” led by Prof. Katharina Schaufler at the Helmholtz Institute for One Health (HIOH) have now uncovered a previously hidden link between antibiotic resistance and virulence in Klebsiella pneumoniae. Virulence describes the extent to which a pathogen can cause disease. The findings were published in the international journal Clinical Microbiology and Infection. HIOH is a site of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research.