Nano Infection Biology
Viruses are nanoscale entities. Despite their size and low complexity, they efficiently enter host cells leading to infection and reprogramming of cellular functions. The critical processes involve only a handful of viral and cellular proteins. Yet this contact is critical for the outcome of infection and the cellular immune response. We look at these processes to understand which cellular processes are stimulated by viruses and how the host cell interprets an infecting virus at the molecular level. At the scale of single viruses, these processes, their dynamics and structural conditions remain mostly unclear. We thus use advanced microscopy techniques, which allow us to visualize viral and cellular nanostructures during the infection process.
Leader
Dr Christian Sieben
Viruses are nanoscale entities. Over the past decade, we have the reached the technological competence to visualize infection processes on the very scale – an exciting and often surprising view on virus biology.
Christian Sieben studied Biology at the TU Darmstadt with majors in physiology and cell biology. After graduating in plant cell biology, he moved to the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin to start a PhD in single-cell virology. During this time, he developed microscopy approaches to decipher respiratory virus infection at the level of individual cells. He then moved to EPFL in Switzerland to study super-resolution microscopy techniques, which now allow him to study virus infection at the single protein level. In 2020, Christian started his group Nanoscale Infection Biology (NIVI) at HZI in Braunschweig.
