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The cold season has arrived along with the question of whether a vaccination against influenza makes sense in times of the ongoing pandemic. And when is the right time for the third vaccination, i.e. the booster vaccination against Covid-19?

On the occasion of its 15th anniversary, the MTZ®foundation presented the SonderMTZ®-Award 2021 in Erkrath-Trills. The award winner is Dr Sahamoddin Khailaie from the department "Systems Immunology" headed by Prof Michael Meyer-Hermann at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig. The prize was awarded in recognition of his outstanding achievements in the field of Medical Systems Biology and Systems Medicine. The award ceremony took place during the 13th PhD Symposium of the HZI on 2 December 2021.

Cholesterol-lowering drugs do not promote infection with the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. This is the conclusion of a team of researchers from TWINCORE - Center for Experimental and Clinical Infection Research and the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover Foundation, led by Prof Gisa Gerold, together with colleagues from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig and Umea University in Sweden. The scientists have studied several lipid-lowering agents from the group of statins in a cell culture model. They have now published their results in the journal iScience. The TWINCORE-Centre for Experimental and Clinical Infection Research is a joint institution of the Hannover MEdical School (MHH) and the HZI.

Salmonella enterica, a foodborne pathogen, is one of four key global causes of diarrheal diseases, which affect over 550 million people each year. This rod-shaped, Gram-negative bacterium has tubular, whip-like appendages known as flagella that protrude from its surface. Researchers from the Centre for Structural Systems Biology (CSSB) in collaboration with researchers at Research Center Borstel FZB, as well as Max Plank Institute for Infection Biology, the University of Marburg and the Technische Universität Braunschweig studied biochemical and biophysical properties of these bacterial structures. Their study was recently published in PLoS Pathogens. The CSSB is a common initiative by ten northern German research institutions, including the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig.

From July 2020 to August 2021, a research team from the HZI, with external support, studied the antibody status of more than 26,000 people in seven county districts and thus collected important data on the pandemic event.

Though the Corona pandemic is not over yet, we should already start preparing for future pandemics. A look at what infection research can contribute.