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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.

Even after the COVID-19 pandemic, infectious diseases remain among the greatest challenges to global health. At the same time, advances in biomedical research, data-driven methods, and clinical innovation are opening up new opportunities to tailor prevention, diagnosis, and treatment to individual patients. How these approaches can be translated into medical care was the focus of the 2nd International Conference on Individualized Infection Medicine, which took place from March 19 to 21, 2026, at Herrenhausen Palace in Hannover.

Dr. Lina Herhaus has been awarded the Otto Meyerhof Award of the German Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (GBM e.V.) at the 77th Mosbacher Kolloquium of the GBM. The prize, endowed with €5,000 and funded by Boehringer Ingelheim, was presented for the seventh time and recognizes outstanding early-career scientists conducting research in Germany in fields relevant to the GBM within biochemistry and molecular biology. The award commemorates the world-renowned physiologist and biochemist Otto Meyerhof, who worked in Kiel, Berlin, and Heidelberg before being forced to flee Germany in 1938 as a Jewish scientist.

Just in time for today’s World Tuberculosis Day, the new S3 guideline on tuberculosis prevention among newly arrived migrants has gone online at the Association of Scientific Medical Societies (AWMF). Commissioned by the German Respiratory Society (DGP), it was developed under the leadership of the German Central Committee for Tuberculosis Control (DZK) and the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI). Over the past three years, a team of experts from the fields of public health and individual medicine worked together with affected individuals to improve tuberculosis screening—and thus prevention—in Germany. The guideline was funded by the Innovation Fund of the Joint Federal Committee (G-BA).