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According to estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO), vaccinations have saved more than 150 million lives over the past 50 years. However, their development would not have been possible without the use of animal testing. On April 24, these two topics converge: This day marks both World Laboratory Animal Day and the start of the WHO’s World Immunization Week. At the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI), researchers in the project ENDURIVAC are developing an innovative vaccine technology that could eliminate the need for boosters in the long term. In their research, they also use animal testing to assess the vaccine’s efficacy and safety.

INFORBIO is a multidisciplinary project that combines participatory forest management by indigenous communities, agroforestry, the establishment of mobile health clinics, and the development of an early warning system for zoonotic disease surveillance through a multifaceted One Health approach. The overarching goal is to safeguard forests as natural barriers against the spread of zoonotic diseases while improving livelihoods in remote areas of the Central African Republic (CAR) and Cameroon. As part of INFORBIO, researchers at the Helmholtz Institute for One Health (HIOH), a site of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI), are developing early warning systems for zoonoses.

The microbiome performs a variety of health-maintaining functions in the body. The microbes can produce nutrients, dampen inflammation or displace pathogens. In order to fulfill all these tasks, the microbiome must be in balance. For the microbiome, this means first and foremost that it is as diverse as possible. This makes it harder for harmful microorganisms to find a niche to live in. If microbiome diversity decreases or harmful germs dominate, there is a risk of inflammation, infections or chronic diseases - and this is precisely where the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) comes in. Using “microbiome engineering”, Dr. Lisa Osbelt-Block and Prof. Till Strowig are specifically editing the gut microbiome to prevent disease.

On 18–20 November 2025, the Central African Republic (CAR) celebrated its first-ever Dzanga-Sangha Day (La Journée des Aires Protégées de Dzanga-Sangha). Conceived as a three-day national event, the celebration aimed to shine a spotlight on the country’s unique natural heritage and raise awareness of the Dzanga-Sangha Protected Areas (DSPA)—an extraordinary conservation landscape in CAR’s remote southwest. Held under the theme “Reconciling Nature, Health and Development”, the event underscored how biodiversity protection, community wellbeing, and scientific research intersect in DSPA. It was co-organized by the Government of the Central African Republic in partnership with WWF and the Helmholtz Institute for One Health (HIOH).

Since the middle of the 20th century, antibiotics have been among the greatest successes in medicine. They save millions of lives every year, prevent complications during operations and make many therapies possible in the first place. But their success has a downside: More and more bacteria are developing strategies to evade the attacks of these drugs. Resistant germs are spreading around the globe, against which hardly any drugs are effective. With the annual World Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness Week (WAAW) from 18 to 24 November, the World Health Organization reminds us how important it is to use antibiotics carefully and how urgently new approaches are needed to continue fighting infections effectively in the future. Almost 20 research groups in the research topic “Novel Anti-Infectives” at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) are developing new drugs against infectious diseases.

Natural substances are an important source of active ingredients used in medicine. However, the chemical diversity of fungi in particular has not yet been sufficiently researched. The EU project Mycobiomics, coordinated by Marc Stadler, Head of the Department “Microbial Drugs” at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI), is investigating the biodiversity of fungi in Europe, Asia and Africa in order to identify pharmaceutically valuable secondary metabolites. In May and June 2025, project participants met in Kenya and South Africa for an expedition and a subsequent symposium.