German Center for Infection Research

Vaccine preparedness for Bundibugyo virus and lessons learned

The ongoing 2026 outbreak of Bundibugyo virus (BDBV) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda is the largest so far on record. Despite experience from previous Ebolavirus outbreaks, the current lack of vaccines against BDBV underscores a recurring failure in proactive p...

High-Risk Clones of Carbapenem-Resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa in India: Genome and Traits

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a notorious opportunistic pathogen constituting a major cause of health care-associated infections worldwide. Intrinsic resistance to multiple antibiotics, with acquired resistance mechanisms and hypervirulence make it a critical target for genomic inves...

Development of a multi-species luciferase-based double-antigen ELISA for the detection of antibodies against influenza A virus H5 clade 2.3.4.4b

ABSTRACT The highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses of subtype H5N1 represent a major threat to animal and public health. The current panzootic with H5 clade 2.3.4.4b has caused numerous, widespread outbreaks in various domestic and wild avian species with high mortalities, ma...

Mechanistic insights into phage dynamics to overcome intracellular bacterial reservoirs in urinary tract infections

Abstract Recurrent urinary tract infections frequently arise from uropathogenic bacteria invading bladder epithelial cells, where they establish persistent intracellular reservoirs. Phages represent a promising therapeutic alternative to antibiotics owing to their host specificit...

Synthesis and Activity‐Based Protein Profiling Identifies Aldo‐Keto Reductase 1C3 as Target Protein of Myxoglucamides

ABSTRACT Myxoglucamides, natural products recently isolated from Cystobacterineae sp., are featured by an unprecedented vinyl‐substituted α‐keto‐γ‐amino acid that is linked to a glycosylated 14‐methyl‐pentadecanoic acid. Thus, they unite elements from three biomolecular classes i...

Diagnostic performance of a centrifugation-free stool processing kit in conjunction with Xpert®MTB/RIF Ultra for paediatric tuberculosis: a multicentre prospective study in five low and middle-income countries

Diagnosing paediatric tuberculosis (TB) remains challenging. Currently available diagnostic tests have limited accuracy, and most sampling methods are invasive. In 2021, the World Health Organisation (WHO) endorsed the use of molecular WHO-recommended rapid diagnostic tests (mWRD...

Characterising recent antimalarial resistance in West Africa: Insights from amplicon sequencing of 17,384 Plasmodium falciparum infection samples

<ns5:p> Background <ns5:italic>Plasmodium falciparum</ns5:italic> ( <ns5:italic>P. falciparum</ns5:italic> ) infection remains a significant public health threat in West Africa, where chemoprevention and first-line therapies are key interventions against malaria. However, the dev...

Investigating changes in the blood-brain barrier in schizophrenia spectrum disorders: design and methodology of a longitudinal dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI study

Schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs) are clinically and biologically heterogeneous and lack reliable biomarkers for stratification, treatment response and course prediction. Evidence from postmortem, fluid biomarker, and neuroimaging studies suggests that changes in the blood-...

Airway microbial compartmentalization under mechanical ventilation: a randomized pilot study comparing an endotracheal tube with suction and continuous cuff pressure control (Venner PneuX®) to standard intubation

Abstract Objectives Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is driven in part by microaspiration along the endotracheal tube cuff, a process difficult to measure directly in ventilated patients. Because microbial communities differ between airway compartments, changes in their simi...