Institutes

Most viruses induce first immune responses within hours for ensuring the survival of the host. Particularly important messengers in this defense reaction of the organism are interferon alpha and beta. Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Ulrich Kalinke clarifies the mechanisms of the interferon reaction chain.

Around 130 million people are chronically infected with the hepatitis C virus. For these patients the risk of developing liver cancer increases. Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Thomas Pietschmann an his team are looking for new approaches for the treatment of hepatitis C. They study the molecular basis of virus replication in liver cells, in order to develop new points of attack against the virus.

In hospital, chronic infections caused by colonies of bacteria - so-called biofilms - are a growing problem. With newly developed technologies Prof. Susanne Häußler is looking  for clinical assays and therapeutic options against the formation of biofilms.

Infection Epidemiology conducts research on the behavior of contagious diseases at the population level : Who is sick? Who stays healthy? Prof. Dr. Gérard Krause investigates epidemiological determinants for the spread of infectious diseases particularly with respect to disease prevention in the general human population.

Medicine has always endeavoured to understand the particularities of each individual patient in order to be able to treat him as best and individually as possible. The Centre for Individualised Infection Medicine (CiiM) is facing urgent challenges in infectious medicine with the aim of an individual prognosis and diagnosis of infectious diseases and a derived optimised and tailor-made prevention and therapy for the benefit of the individual patient.