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Martin Korte researches the influence of infections and infection-associated inflammations on neurodegenerative diseases that damage, for example, learning processes or memory. Korte is group leader of the “Neuroinflammation and Neurodegeneration” research group at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) and director of the Zoological Institute at the Technische Universität Braunschweig where he also holds a professorship for Cellular Neurobiology. A newly emerging field of research are the symptoms summarily known as "long COVID", which continue to manifest for months in about ten per cent of patients after overcoming a COVID-19 disease. In this interview, Martin Korte explains these long-term consequences, which are the subject of his new book (in German).

Many people suffer from neurodermatitis (atopic dermatitis) or psoriasis. These chronic inflammatory diseases, which have so far been incurable, can lead to a significant loss of quality of life due to the agonising itching and stigmatisation in severe forms. Researchers of the exzellence cluster RESIST have now gained a number of new insights with potential clinical relevance using state-of-the-art technologies such as T-cell receptor and single-cell RNA sequencing based on skin biopsies and blood samples from patients. They have published these in the journal Allergy, currently the leading publication in the field of allergology, in two articles. The main authors include Dr Bowen Zhang from the research group of Prof Yang Li, Centre for Individualised Infection Medicine (CiiM) and TWINCORE - Centre for Experimental and Clinical Infection Research, and Dr Lennart Rösner and Dr Stephan Traidl from the team of Prof Thomas Werfel, Clinic for Dermatology, Allergology and Venereology at Hanover Medical School (MHH). The CiiM and TWINCORE are joint institutions of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig and MHH.

Dr Peggy Riese is a scientist in the Department of Vaccinology and Applied Microbiology at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig, Germany. Her research focuses on the special features of the immune system in its interaction with vaccines. In this interview, she talks about current developments in SARS-CoV-2 vaccine research.

In their search for new substances that are effective against infectious diseases, researchers at the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) are extracting natural substances from soil bacteria. They are getting help from the public in the course of a citizen science project, which this year recruited citizen scientists from all over Germany on board the exhibition ship “MS Wissenschaft”.

Founded in April 2022, the Helmholtz Institute for One Health (HIOH) in Greifswald is a new branch of the HZI. What exactly does One Health mean? And why is this research approach particularly important today?

Christian Sieben decided in favour of biology thanks to his older sister, also a biologist, who gave him an early glimpse behind the scenes of this field of study. But the 40-year old‘s career path was anything but classical. After completing his diploma in Darmstadt, he went to Berlin to do his doctorate - in the biophysics department of the Humboldt University. Although he had never been concerned with virology or microbiology during his studies, his research now focussed on influenza viruses and their initial cell contact using super-resolution microscopes for his doctoral thesis. A far-reaching decision: “It was at this time that the foundation for my research today was laid.”