Bettina

Vaccine research: Basis for the development of a mouse model found / Humans are the only natural host of the hepatitis C virus. Mice, in contrast, are not susceptible. “The reasons for this were not exactly known", says Professor Dr. Thomas Pietschmann, Director of the Institute for Experimental Virology at TWINCORE.  Now, with the support from national and international colleagues, his team has succeeded in identifying two factors that protect mice liver cells from infection with the hepatitis C virus (HCV): These are Cd302, a lectin, and Cr1l, a complement receptor-like protein. These results, published in the journal Science Advances, [...]

Since November 2020 Dr. Faranaz Atschekzei is now associated with RESIST. She is dedicated to primary immune deficiencies in order to help affected people with individual therapies. She has been successfully researching in the field of immunogenetics at the MHH Clinic for Rheumatology and Immunology for eight years and has been involved in the RESIST subproject A2 since 2019. Her research group focuses on the molecular genetics of primary immunodeficiencies and how epigenetic factors influence immunodeficiency diseases. Primary immunodeficiencies are congenital and often genetically determined defects of the immune system that manifest themselves in childhood or even in adolescence [...]

Sabrina Schreiner holds the W2 RESIST professorship for virus replication in cellular chromatin at the MHH Institute of Virology since October 2020. She focuses with her research on human adenoviruses, which cause conjunctivitis, gastrointestinal disorders or pneumonia, among other things. In most cases, such a disease proceeds in healthy adults either without any clear or with very mild symptoms. "It can be assumed that everyone has already had several adenovirus infections," explains Professor Schreiner. The human adenovirus, of which there are currently more than 85 different types known, were previously not considered particularly dangerous. But in immunocompromised people, the [...]

Professor Čičin-Šain has identified the key factor that viruses use to paralyse immune defense mechanisms of their hosts Defense cells constantly patrol our tissues to detect pathogens. If they find body cells invaded by a virus, they instruct the infected to destroy themselves by a range of mechanisms that share a central switch. Viruses can block this important switch and thus prevent the cellular self-destruction. This discovery was made by the team around RESIST researcher Professor Dr. Luka Čičin-Šain at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig. "Our findings lead to a paradigm shift in viral research [...]

The RESIST team led by Professor Dr. Thomas Pietschmann at TWINCORE – Centre for Experimental and Clinical Infection Research has improved a liver cell model to investigate the life cycle of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) and also the disease development caused by this virus in more detail. HCV and the human host cell interaction and their impact on both acute and chronic infections as well as the mechanisms of innate immune control can be studied using the adapted cell model. The team published the findings in the high-ranking journal GUT. The first author is Dr. Arnaud Carpentier. This [...]

Since 1st of October 2020, Marco Galardini has been appointed to the RESIST funded Professor position for "Systems Biology of Microbial Communities" at Hannover Medical School (MHH). He heads the research group with the same name at the Institute for Molecular Bacteriology at TWINCORE. “Just as every human being is different from the others, although we are all humans, bacterial strains inside one species can differ. If the species exist in different surroundings mutations create genetic variations that can affect more than half of their genetic content”, says Marco Galardini. He focuses on the question how this genetic differences [...]

Charles M. Rice awarded the 2020 Nobel Prizein Physiology or Medicine Charles M. Rice, member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Cluster of Excellence RESIST, receives the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine - together with Harvey J. Alter and Michael Houghton. This was announced by the Nobel Prize Committee on 5th of October 2020 at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. The three researchers are being honoured for their discovery of the hepatitis C virus. They have found the cause of chronic hepatitis cases and made blood tests and new drugs available, which have saved millions of [...]

RESIST research team comes a step closer to protection against herpes viruses When herpes viruses enter the human host cell, the viral membrane fuses with the cellular membrane. Specific viral proteins are required for this process: As these proteins fold in a defined way, they manage to fuse the two membranes. The shape of the proteins before the fusion is the one which is found on the surface of virus. It is an attractive target for the development of drugs and vaccines. But this form is highly unstable. A team led by RESIST researcher Professor Kay Grünewald has now [...]