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EXC 2155:  RESIST - Resolving Infection Susceptibility

Subject Area Microbiology, Virology and Immunology
Basic Research in Biology and Medicine
Medicine
Term since 2019
Website Homepage
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 390874280
 
Individual predisposition and the ability to fight microbial pathogens play a crucial role in the severity and outcome of infectious diseases. This aspect did not only turn out to be important for pandemic pathogens, such as SARS-CoV-2, but is also of central importance for controlling common endemic bacteria and viruses that primarily cause disease in susceptible individuals. Newborns and the elderly are particularly susceptible to infections. In modern medicine, therapies that deliberately weaken or modulate the immune system are increasingly used for treating autoimmune diseases and cancer, and for preventing transplant rejections. The accompanying increase in infection susceptibility limits treatment success. The associated societal costs are expected to increase substantially due to an ageing population worldwide. The RESIST Cluster of Excellence aims to comprehensively understand the determinants of infection susceptibility. This improved understanding will provide the starting point for precise, personalised strategies to prevent and treat infectious diseases in susceptible individuals. The RESIST Research Programme is built on well-characterised, systematically developed cohorts of susceptible patients and healthy volunteers. These cohorts enable us to comprehensively investigate infection susceptibility, including genetic determinants of immune deficiencies, the development and adaptation of the immune response, and the pathogenic mechanisms of the bacterial and viral infections that typically occur in such patients. RESIST builds on the excellent interdisciplinary research infrastructure in the fields of infection and immunity that has been established around MHH in the Hannover-Braunschweig region over the last two decades in close collaboration with the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI), and the two joint daughter institutes, Twincore and CiiM. RESIST integrates world-leading expertise in the fields of molecular structural analysis (CSSB, Hamburg) and inborn errors of immunity (CCI, Freiburg). This infrastructure supports early career development while promoting gender equity and diversity. In its second funding period, RESIST will build on its prior achievements and integrate new models and technologies, such as state-of-the-art genome analysis, automated organoid technology, single-cell multi-omics, and large-scale data analysis and machine learning. Thereby, RESIST will continue to create new ideas and concepts that can be taken up in our existing translational research programmes in the German Centers for Infection Research and Lung Research (DZIF, DZL) and by our recently established Centre for Individualized Infection Medicine (CiiM) in Hannover, and can be applied to patients. In this way, RESIST will continue to act as a catalyst between basic and translational research in infectious diseases.
DFG Programme Clusters of Excellence (ExStra)
Applicant Institution Medizinische Hochschule Hannover
 
 

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