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Bakterium Klebsiella pneumoniae
News
Natural antibiotics: Joining forces in the fight against resistant bacteria
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).
28.02.2019
HZI Campus
HIPS
Gruppenbild
News
HZI Active substance researcher wins DECHEMA-Doktorandenpreis
For the characterization of new bioactive metabolites from tropical Basidiomycetes, a division of fungi, Dr Clara Chepkirui of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Brunswick was awarded this year’s DECHEMA-Doktorandenpreis für Naturstoff-Forschung. While doing her doctorate in the HZI department Microbial Drugs, headed by Prof Marc Stadler, Chepkirui discovered the microporenic acids, which proved effective against bacterial biofilms.
25.02.2019
HZI Campus
Nobelpreisträger Manfred Eigen
News
The HZI mourns the death of Nobel Prize winner Manfred Eigen
He was one of the most versatile German researchers and a popular representative of science. Manfred Eigen, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and one of the founders of the Gesellschaft für Biotechnologische Forschung in Braunschweig – today the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI). Manfred Eigen died on 6 February, 2019, at the age of 91.
08.02.2019
Portrait Markus Cornberg
News
New Clinical Director at the HZI
Prof Markus Cornberg, a medical doctor by training, is the new Clinical Director of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig. Cornberg will also become director of the Centre for Individualised Infection Medicine (CiiM), a collaboration of the HZI and the Hannover Medical School (MHH). He is the successor to Prof Michael Manns, who resigned from both positions due to his inauguration as president of the MHH effective 1 January 2019.
08.02.2019
CiiM
Klebsiella Bakterium
News
How bacteria turn off an antibiotic
Many common antibiotics are increasingly losing their effectiveness against multi-resistant pathogens, which are becoming ever more prevalent. Bacteria use natural means to acquire mechanisms that protect them from harmful substances. For instance against the agent albicidin: Harmful Gram-negative bacteria possess a protein that binds and inactivates albicidin. The underlying resistance mechanism has been investigated at atomic resolution by scientists from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) and the associated Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS). The scientists discovered that this protein not only binds the antibiotic, but also promotes its chemical modification. Concurrently, it promotes its own production such that it can inactivate albicidin even more efficiently. The results of this study have been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
18.12.2018
HIPS
Dr. Katherine S.H. Beckham, Trägerin des diesjährigen Jürgen-Wehland-Preises, mit (v.l.) Prof. Hansjörg Hauser vom Förderverein des HZI, Prof. Dirk Heinz und Prof. Matthias Wilmanns
News
Jürgen Wehland Award goes to molecular biologist Katherine Beckham
The molecular biologist Dr Katherine Beckham has received the 2018 Jürgen Wehland Award. She is a scientist at the Hamburg branch of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), working in the research department run by Prof Matthias Wilmanns. Beckham is investigating special molecular tools of bacterial pathogens, through which germs deliver infectious proteins to the cells of its host. The Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig has granted the Jürgen Wehland Award, endowed with 5000 euros, for the seventh time, thus honouring junior researchers doing important work in infection research.
15.11.2018

HZI in the media

Wild Monkeys Fall Sick With Mpox After Eating Squirrels: Is This How The Virus Jumped To Humans?

Livia V. Patrono, one of the senior authors at the Helmholtz Institute for One Health (HIOH) in Germany, said in a statement .

 

The research

25.02.2026
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IFL Science
An African monkey ate a rope squirrel and came down with mpox

says Livia Patrono, a veterinarian and disease ecologist at Helmholtz Institute for One Health in Greifswald, Germany. In 2012, an infected

24.02.2026
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Science News
Biosicherheit: Wenn Künstliche Intelligenz neuartige Viren liefert

... Dr. rer. nat. Jakob Wirbel vom Helmholtz-Zentrum für Infektionsforschung (Braunschweig). Das Experiment aus Stanford sei ...

20.02.2026
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Deutsches Ärzteblatt
Wie Bakterien ihre Zucker-Tarnkappe stricken: Neuer Ansatz gegen Resistenzen?

... unseres Immunsystems zu entziehen. Strukturbiologen des Helmholtz-Zentrums für Infektionsforschung (HZI) konnten nun mittels ...

18.02.2026
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Bionity.COM
Molecular 'knitting machine' for bacterial capsules mapped in 3D

of our immune system. Structural biologists at the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research (HZI) have now used cryo-electron microscopy to

16.02.2026
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Phys.org
Wohl von Feuerfußhörnchen übertragen: Was man über Ansteckung mit Mpox wissen muss

Was es mit Mpox – früher Affenpocken genannt – auf sich hat, welche Symptome erkrankte Personen haben und wie man sich anstecken kann.

13.02.2026
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Apotheken Umschau
Mpox transmission model sheds light on a medical mystery

Julia Port, research group leader at Germany's Helmholtz Center for Infection Research.

 

"Ongoing outbreaks—particularly those driven by

12.02.2026
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Medical Xpress
Möglicher Ursprung des Affenpockenvirus entdeckt

... Livia Patrono, laut einer Mitteilung des beteiligten Helmholtz-Instituts für One Health (HIOH): Denn dadurch ...

12.02.2026
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n-tv
Neue Strahlenklinik soll Anfang 2027 fertig sein

... für den Neubau der Klinik für Strahlentherapie Würzburg sowie für das Helmholtz-Institut für RNA-basierte ...

12.02.2026
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Main-Post - Karlstadt
Fire-footed rope squirrels identified as a natural reservoir for monkeypox virus

Project

 

Researchers at the Helmholtz Institute for One Health (HIOH), a site of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI), together

11.02.2026
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NewsBreak
Viromed Medical AG reports promising study results for PulmoPlas® in intensive care unit ventilator-associated pneumonia patients

by Prof. Hortense Slevogt, Hannover Medical School, and Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, shows that the treatment with PulmoPlas®

10.02.2026
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Biotech Investments
Immunkrankheiten im Blut aufspüren

... der Medizinischen Hochschule Hannover und des Helmholtz-Zentrums für Infektionsforschung. „Unsere Methode erfordert nur einen ...

10.02.2026
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Health Capital

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