Infection Biochemistry

Group Leader: Dr. Maren von Köckritz-Blickwede

Despite the extensive use of antibiotics and vaccination programmes, infectious diseases continue to be a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Especially, the emergence of multidrug-resistant bacteria, as for example multidrug-resistant gram-negative bacteria (so-called MDRGN) or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which have been a clinical problem since the early 1980s, generate increasing public health concern and economic loss. The goal of the research group Infection Biochemistry led by Dr. Maren von Köckritz-Blickwede is to combine two of the most active areas of biomedical research to search for novel anti-bacterial strategies: the molecular and cellular basis of microbial pathogenesis, and the nature and manipulation of the host immune defense.

The frontline function of phagocytes in our innate immune defense has been classically understood to reflect a variety of potent intracellular antimicrobial mechanisms. Beginning with a landmark study by Brinkmann et al. (Science, 2004) and followed with a study by von Köckritz-Blickwede et al. (Blood, 2008), the fundamental conception of how and where host immune cells kill pathogenic microbes has been altered in a most fascinating and provocative way. In these studies, the formation of antimicrobial extracellular traps (ETs), DNA-based structures that mediate entrapment and killing of bacteria outside the cell, has been recognized as a novel and important mechanism of the host innate immune response against infections. This discovery has far-reaching implications for our understanding of the innate immune system and the pathophysiology of infectious and inflammatory diseases.

The research group Infection Biochemistry will mainly focus on the role of ETs in host immune defence and will study whether ETs may serve as a potential novel therapeutic target against bacterial infections.