German Center for Infection Research

Effectiveness of an on-site vaccination campaign for patients with cancer

Abstract Background Patients with haematological or oncological malignancies are at increased risk of severe infections. Vaccination is a key preventive strategy and is recommended by National Immunization Technical Advisory Groups (NITAGs). Yet, vaccination rates in this populat...

Non-invasive sampling reveals distinct HPV and immune signatures associated with abnormal cytology in people living with HIV

Abstract Persistent high-risk HPV infections drive most anal cancers, disproportionately affecting people with HIV (PLH), for whom cytology-based screening remains essential. However, the biological context of abnormal anal cytology, particular regarding local immune cells, is in...

Sexual Health in Psychiatry: Bridging the Communication Gap and Training Needs between Patients and Clinicians – A Cross-Sectional Exploratory Pilot Study

Sexual health is integral to mental well-being, yet it remains under-addressed in psychiatric care. Mental disorders and psychotropic medications can cause sexual dysfunctions. Despite its clinical relevance, sexual health is often not routinely assessed or discussed in psychiatr...

Building a One Health mobile laboratory workforce: strengthening public health preparedness across Europe and Africa

Abstract The emergence and re-emergence of infectious diseases remain a major public health threat in Europe. The Horizon Europe-funded MOBILISE project addresses this challenge by establishing a One Health Mobile Laboratory capable of handling risk group 3 and 4 pathogens, while...

Efficacy of dolutegravir or bictegravir-containing therapy in a real-life cohort of people with HIV-1 sub-subtype A6

OBJECTIVE: The objective of the study was to establish whether HIV-1 sub-subtype A6 (HIV-1A6) is a risk factor for virological failure in people with HIV (PWH) treated with the high genetic barrier integrase strand transfer inhibitors (INSTIs) dolutegravir (DTG) or bictegravir (B...

Structural alterations in early auditory cortex in borderline personality disorder with auditory verbal hallucinations

Abstract Auditory Verbal Hallucinations (AVH) are not exclusive to schizophrenia but also occur in other psychiatric disorders, including Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). While AVH in SZ has been extensively studied, their neurobiological underpinnings in BPD remain poorly...

A targetable dependency on nonsense-mediated decay for cellular homeostasis and immune control in small cell lung cancer

Abstract Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is one of the most aggressive malignancies, characterized by rapid metastatic dissemination and poor overall survival. Despite harboring excessive alterations, expectedly resulting in immunogenic neoantigens, patients with SCLC remain largel...

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...

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...

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...