Joint project
Funder: Hessian Ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science and the Arts
Period: 2021-2024
URI: https://proloewe.de/en/research-initiatives/by-topic/diffusible-signals/
Wie kommunizieren Bakterien und unser Immunsystem?
Bakterielle Infektionskrankheiten gehören weltweit zu den häufigsten Todesursachen. Weil Bakterien gegen Antibiotika resistent werden, sind unsere wichtigsten Medikamente gegen Infektionskrankheiten zunehmend wirkungslos. Dieses Problems will sich das Forschungsvorhaben „Diffusible Signals“ annehmen. Es will eine zentrale Grundlage der Infektionsprozesse untersuchen und verändern: die Kommunikation zwischen Bakterien und menschlichen Entzündungszellen. Gemeinsam erforschen Ärzte, Biologen und Informatiker den Austausch löslicher (diffusibler) Signale an den Grenzflächen klinisch wichtiger Bakterien und Entzündungszellen. Neue Einblicke in Infektionsprozesse können helfen, neue zielgerichtete Therapien zu entwickeln, die die menschliche Immunabwehr stärken und den bakteriellen Angriff schwächen.
Detailed description:
Bacterial infectious diseases are among the most frequent causes of death worldwide. For about 100 years, antibiotics have been available as extremely successful drugs to combat bacterial infections. Due to antibiotic resistance, the most important drugs against infectious diseases are becoming increasingly ineffective. Furthermore, it seems that the development and course of infectious diseases, but also the protection against them, are influenced much more than previously assumed by the interactions of bacteria with each other and with human cells. The goal is to decipher the diffusible signals at the interfaces of microbe-host interaction under physiological and pathological conditions and to derive medical benefits. For this purpose, multi-resistant Gram-negative pathogens were selected as one of the central medical challenges from the perspective of the World Health Organization (WHO), national health systems and industry. The initiative analyzes the diffusible signals in this clinically very important infection process in an integrative manner and with approaches from medicine, bacterial and host biology and withe the use of bioinformatics and artificial intelligence. The results are to be integrated into an overall picture with which medically useful strategies can be developed and tested preclinically. This is currently unique even beyond Germany. "Diffusible Signals" successfully combines the complementary research areas of microbiology and infection biology, computational sciences as well as biochemistry and biophysics.
Coordinating organisation / Consortium Leader
- Philipps University of Marburg
Cooperation partners with funding
- Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology
- University of Giessen
