Newsroom

Am Helmholtz-Institut für Pharmazeutische Forschung Saarland (HIPS) findet am 27. und 28. Juni zum neunten Mal das HIPS-Symposium statt. In diesem Rahmen wird gleichzeitig das 10-jährige Jubiläum des Saarbrücker Standortes des Helmholtz-Zentrums für Infektionsforschung (HZI) in Braunschweig gefeiert. Der Ministerpräsident des Saarlandes, Tobias Hans, die Ministerialdirektorin des Bundesministeriums für Bildung und Forschung, Prof. Veronika von Messling, sowie Prof. Otmar D. Wiestler, Präsident der Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft, Prof. Dirk Heinz, wissenschaftlicher Geschäftsführer des Helmholtz-Zentrums für Infektionsforschung, und Prof. Manfred Schmitt, Präsident der Universität des Saarlandes, werden neben Prof. Rolf Müller, dem geschäftsführenden Direktor des HIPS, die Jubiläumsgäste begrüßen. Neben international renommierten Forschern aus dem Bereich der Wirkstoffforschung präsentieren auch Nachwuchswissenschaftler ihre Ergebnisse.

Medically relevant compounds can often be found in nature. To make them suitable for drugs, they need to be isolated from their natural sources. If sufficient quantities of the agent cannot be isolated in that manner, chemical synthesis comes into play. Without chemical synthesis, many agents were not available for the industrial production of drugs. Phil S. Baran of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, USA, aims to develop the “perfect synthesis”. His methods and reagents are applied in fundamental chemical research and in the production of pharmaceuticals. They are commercially marketed with much success. In honour of his outstanding achievements, he is being awarded the Inhoffen Medal by the “Friends of the HZI”, the sponsors' association of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI).

An increasing number of bacteria are developing resistance to commonly used antibiotics, making it imperative to advance research into new antibiotics for clinical and medical use. Olga Kalinina, the new endowed professor for substance bioinformatics, is dedicating herself to this task. Since January this year, the scientist has been based at the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS), a branch site of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) and the Saarland University, working on developing new antibiotics from biologically active natural substances. Her research will be supported until 2022 by the Klaus Faber Foundation in Saarbrücken, with a total of 1.6 million euros.

The treatment of hepatitis C has been based on specific effective antiviral medications for a number of years. Since future development of resistance cannot be ruled out, alternative treatment options are being researched as well. So-called cell entry inhibitors are considered to be promising candidates. In combined efforts with colleagues from the Leibniz University Hannover, scientists from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) and the TWINCORE pinpointed the target site on the virus and developed improved drug candidates. Their study has recently been published in the Journal of Hepatology.

Dendritic cells act as the guardians of our immune system. They are lurking for foreign invaders, swallow them, break them into pieces and present the fragments on the cell surface. When the dendritic cells and their pathogen fragments come into contact with specialised white blood cells, called T cells, these T cells are activated and they can destroy the infected cells. Researchers from TWINCORE, a joint facility of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) and the Hannover Medical School (MHH), have now discovered how the uptake of antigens and presentation of antigen fragments on human dendritic cells are regulated in terms of time and space. These findings form the foundation for the development of improved vaccines. The study has just been published in the journal Blood Advances.

On 20 February 2019, the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) and Evotec AG announced their cooperation, scheduled for three years initially. They aim to develop new antibiotics that overcome resistant bacterial pathogens – a global health threat. The research activities will initially focus on the optimisation of cystobactamids, which are natural anti-bacterial substances that have a novel chemical scaffold and are effective against the most harmful Gram-negative bacteria. The research cooperation with Evotec resulted from an intensive preceding cooperation of the HZI, its Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland, and the Leibniz University Hannover, supported by the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF).