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SFB 900:  Chronic Infections: Microbial Persistence and its Control

Subject Area Medicine
Term from 2010 to 2022
Website Homepage
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 158989968
 
From birth on, human beings are colonized by a multitude of microorganisms that are able to persist in various niches of the human body over the lifetime of the colonized individual. The relationship between man and his microbiological ‘tenants’ is usually of a symbiotic nature. However, this symbiotic relationship can fail when certain bacterial species acquire new, pathogenic, traits or a stable, mutually beneficial co-existence of man and microbe cannot be established or maintained on account of genetically determined or acquired deficiencies in the host’s immune system. Persisting microorganisms are thus both ‘friend’ and ‘foe’ and differ fundamentally in their biological behaviour from microbes that infect humans or animals only in a transient manner and cause acute infectious disease. Where they are the cause of disease, their ability to persist creates a particular therapeutic challenge, as conventional therapeutic strategies aimed at curbing their replication or proliferation are usually not able to eradicate the infection and often only ‘buy time’. It is therefore the aim of collaborative research centre ‘Chronic Infections: Microbial Persistence and its Control’ to further advance our understanding of why, and how, chronic bacterial and viral pathogens persist, and how a better understanding of the mechanisms involved in microbial persistence can provide new approaches to therapy. CRC conducts research into several mechanisms of microbial persistence, in particular the ability of the pathogen to evolve in the infected host, thereby adapting itself to different habitats, immune pressure or selection by antimicrobial agents, its interaction with different immune sensing and effector mechanisms, and its ability to exploit intracellular pathways to promote its persistence in the infected cell.
DFG Programme Collaborative Research Centres

Completed projects

Applicant Institution Medizinische Hochschule Hannover
 
 

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