We welcome Prof. Dr. Kurt-Wolfram Sühs as a new member of RESIST. He ist senior physician in the MHH Department of Neurology with Clinical Neurophysiology, and he is focusing his research in RESIST with his research team on the varicella-zoster virus (VZV), which can cause shingles when reactivated. “We want to find out which factors lead to a severe course of the disease in this case,” says the neurologist.
To this end, he is investigating clinical and genetic factors as well as biomarkers in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients suffering from VZV. “This information will provide clues for a better understanding of the disease and for clinical treatment, and may form the basis for identifying new targets for the treatment of severe courses of VZV infection,” he describes. Prof. Sühs is involved in the RESIST research projects A3 and A4.
The focus of his working group is also research on neuroimmunological mechanisms in inflammatory diseases of the nervous system, especially autoimmune and infectious encephalitides. He is interested in which mechanisms underlie these diseases, which factors influence the diseases and their severity and whether these influences can be used for diagnostics, individual prognosis assessment and therapy.
Prof. Sühs studied and did his doctorate at the MHH, and was an assistant physician in neurology at Georg-August University Göttingen and Saarland University, Homburg. He joined the MHH Department of Neurology in 2012 and became a senior physician in 2017. He was appointed professor in 2022.