On 22 July, Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Lower Saxony’s Minister President Olaf Lies drove up to the campus of Hannover Medical School (MHH) in a self-driving, electric VW ID.Buzz to find out more about the RESIST Cluster of Excellence. After the State Chancellery, MHH was the second stop on the Chancellor’s inaugural visit to Lower Saxony.
MHH President Prof. Dr. Denise Hilfiker-Kleiner and RESIST spokesperson Prof. Dr. Reinhold Förster welcomed the Chancellor and the Minister President and provided an initial insight into the work of the MHH and the Cluster of Excellence RESIST. “We are delighted to be able to present our Cluster of Excellence RESIST to you,” said Professor Förster. “We are conducting research to better protect particularly susceptible people from infections with viruses and bacteria – especially newborns, senior citizens, people with congenital immunodeficiency and people whose immune system is suppressed for therapeutic reasons. RESIST aims to prevent infections and develop better diagnoses and therapies.” Professor Förster explained the research and goals of RESIST together with co-spokesperson Prof. Dr. Gesine Hansen and co-spokesperson Prof. Dr. Thomas F. Schulz as well as Prof. Dr. Markus Cornberg, Director of the Centre for Individualised Infection Medicine (CiiM) and Clinical Director of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI). To illustrate the research at RESIST, the guests then visited two laboratories and met two patients.
Chancellor Merz is very impressed
“I was impressed by the research successes of the Cluster of Excellence RESIST,” said Chancellor Merz following his visit. “I had the opportunity to see a young family with a premature baby who survived sepsis because different research areas worked together. You can see from practical examples like this how much basic research is needed to come up with new therapies. I am really very impressed. It was also an extremely encouraging visit for me emotionally to see what we can do – in prevention, diagnostics and therapy.” With regard to autonomous driving and research at the MHH, the Federal Chancellor summarised his visit to Hanover with the words: “This is Germany at its very best.”
“Lower Saxony has a future – and MHH is part of our future. We have experienced this impressively here today with the RESIST cluster and its expertise in research and clinics,” concluded Lower Saxony’s Minister President Olaf Lies. “We were able to talk to the parents of baby Leon, who would not have survived without treatment at this university hospital, and to a patient for whom there would have been no future without the MHH. We are proud of our MHH.”
MHH President Professor Hilfiker-Kleiner hopes that the Chancellor will return: “We are delighted that the Chancellor visited MHH and got involved with us. As a supramaximal care provider, the MHH stands for excellent, patient-centred medicine, supported by science-based, translationally oriented teaching and interprofessional collaboration between all healthcare professions.”
The four stations
Cells of the future
In the first laboratory, RESIST Professor Dr. Nico Lachmann and his team explained pioneering, cell-based therapeutic approaches against antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. The focus here is on the body’s own immune cells, which can specifically destroy pathogens. He produces these phagocytes (macrophages) from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) – these are stem cells produced from body cells. Professor Lachmann’s team has established a globally unique technology: the scalable, biotechnological production of human immune cells (e.g. macrophages) from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). The researcher showed the guests how human immune cells can be produced from iPSC in bioreactors and how these cells eliminate pathogens. The ability to produce human immune cells in unlimited quantities lays the foundation for novel therapeutic options for the treatment of infectious diseases. In Germany, potentially 40,000 to 50,000 patients per year could benefit from this therapy.
Defence in real time
In the second laboratory, Professor Förster demonstrated research centred around the human cytomegalovirus (HCMV). The body can normally keep these viruses under control. But if the immune system is severely weakened – for example after a transplant – they can become active again and cause serious infections. It is possible to treat such infections with T-cells that specifically attack the virus; this therapy is already being tested in the clinic. However, it is not yet known exactly how the HCMV-specific T cells recognise and fight infected cells in real human lung tissue. This is what Professor Förster’s team is investigating. To do this, the researchers are infecting very thinly sliced lung tissue with HCMV. The virus is programmed to produce a green glowing protein as soon as a human cell is infected. T cells labelled with a red dye are then added. Using a 2-photon microscope, it is now possible to observe in real time how the defence cells kill infected cells. In the long term, the results could help to develop better, customised cell therapies to protect particularly vulnerable patients from HCMV infections more effectively and safely after a transplant.
Protection for premature and newborn babies
Professor Hansen and her team explained infection research that benefits newborns to the guests – in the presence of a patient (a baby) and its parents. Neonatal sepsis (blood poisoning) is one of the main causes of infant mortality worldwide, especially for premature babies. Until recently, it was assumed that the immaturity of the immune system of newborns was responsible for their high susceptibility to infection. However, the researchers have discovered that high concentrations of the protein S100A8/A9 alarmin (S100 for short) in the blood of newborns and in breast milk prevent excessive immune reactions in newborns and thus protect them from sepsis. Accordingly, low blood levels of S100, which regularly occur in premature babies, are associated with an increased risk of severe infections. In experimental models, the team was able to show that a single administration of S100 after birth significantly reduces the risk of infection. The researchers found that S100 regulates the newborn’s immune system and promotes favourable development of the gut microbiome. New strategies for the prevention of severe infections in premature and full-term babies can be derived from these findings. To this end, the researchers are conducting initial clinical studies and are investigating the industrial production of S100 in order to be able to add this protective protein to infant formula if necessary.
New treatment for brain inflammation
In the presence of patient Jürgen Brünning-Kuhlmann, Prof. Dr. Thomas Skripuletz and his team then explained a new treatment for the fatal disease progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) – a rare but very serious viral infection of the brain that occurs primarily in patients with a weakened immune system. It is caused by the JC virus (also known as HPyV2). Today, PML mainly occurs in people with blood cancers who are receiving medication to suppress the tumour and therefore have an immune deficiency. Without treatment, up to 90 per cent of those affected die within a few months of diagnosis. In Germany, around 100 to 150 new cases of PML are diagnosed every year. As the immune system is severely weakened in many of these patients, there is often no simple treatment. A new therapeutic approach is to support the immune system with special defence cells – so-called virus-specific T cells. At the MHH, this treatment concept has been developed in such a way that treatment with virus-specific T cells isolated from healthy donors can be made available to patients in the shortest possible time. T cells have been able to prevent further disease progression in the majority of patients treated to date and lead to stabilisation or improvement of clinical deficits. In RESIST, we are investigating how the transferred cells can be optimised for therapy.
The first photo shows (from left): Prof. Cornberg, Prof. Förster, Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Prof. Hansen, Minister President Olaf Lies, Prof. Hilfiker-Kleiner, Minister Falko Mohrs and Prof. Schulz.
The second photo shows (from left): Minister President Olaf Lies, Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Prof. Lachmann.
The third photo shows (from left): Prof. Förster, Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Minister President Olaf Lies.