More about the research area Inflammation, Infection and Immunity
Infectious diseases have been among the most profound challenges to the existence of humanity. Today we face a host of urgent scientific, political, social, and ethical questions, which requires creative collaborations to overcome. Beyond the immediate impact of pandemics, the problems associated with infection have influenced almost every aspect of human society. Governmental and non-governmental organisations, scientists, and scholars have grappled with the management of diseases and societal responses to public health interventions such as vaccine hesitancy and concerns about quarantine. As the molecular structure of the pathogens causing infectious diseases has evolved alongside susceptible hosts, so too have pathogens reshaped cultures and religions, affected community dynamics and the power of states, influenced ethical norms, and contributed to prejudices and segregation.
Climate and demographic change also continue to foster the global spread of pathogens, exacerbating existing challenges. The multiple factors relevant to infection biology and medicine are subject to many disciplines and can only be studied using transdisciplinary approaches. The ever-changing molecular nature of pathogens and their social, cultural, economic, and political impact keeps infectious diseases at the forefront of global health challenges, presenting new and evolving obstacles to human welfare and wellbeing.
At the University of Hamburg (UHH), its University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), and its partner non-university institutes in the Hamburg metropolitan region, comprising the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchroton DESY, the Leibniz Institute of Virology, and the Leibniz Lung Center (FZB), research into infectious diseases – and more generally infection biology – is driven in research environments focussed on the interplay between different pathogens and their target organisms, and examines how individuals and society respond in multiple ways to infections. Inflammation and immunity are responses of the body to infection and are a significant complementary research focus.
In Hamburg, transdisciplinary collaboration between the humanities, social sciences, and biomedical and life sciences is central to research on infectious diseases. Here, the newly founded Centre for the Study of Health, Ethics, and Society (CHES), with its strong track record of innovative research, offers leadership in international transdisciplinary scholarship. We recognise that emerging diseases pose complex cultural, ethical, and societal challenges which demand a response that draws on multiple fields of expertise, diverse methodologies (e.g. diachronic and synchronic analyses, quantitative data sets, social surveys), and heterogenous forms of knowledge (e.g. historical, anthropological, philosophical, biomedical, physicochemical, mathematical) to address their broader implications. This perspective helps to inform humanitarian, ethical, and socially equitable policies dedicated to effectively managing and tackling both existing and novel infectious diseases.
The Hamburg metropolitan region possesses an excellent research infrastructure and an ideal intellectual environment, which has established itself as an international, collaborative hub in infectious disease research, engaging in outreach activities within the scientific and broader community. The Centre for Structural Systems Biology (CSSB) reflects this collaborative approach and includes additional partners such as the Hannover Medical School and the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (Braunschweig). CSSB offers the technical approaches to observe cellular processes dynamically in high spatial and temporal resolution. Using this infrastructure, the CSSB research groups decipher the dynamics of viral, bacterial, and parasitic structures and their intricate interactions with structures of the infected host cell.
The metropolitan region also forms an important site within the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), which focusses on the translation of basic biomedical results into medical application. The DZIF partner site Hamburg-Lübeck-Borstel-Riems focusses on the epidemiology of malaria, the translation of insights into the immune reaction to tuberculosis into clinical practice, diagnostics of, and vaccines against, emerging infections, and novel therapeutic approaches to hepatitis. The site is strongly linked to the DZIF’s African Partner Institutions through many cooperation projects.
The Leibniz Center Infection (LCI) is a dynamic alliance of outstanding non-university institutes, comprising the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNITM), the Leibniz Institute of Virology (LIV), and the Research Center Borstel, Leibniz Lung Center (FZB). The collaborative projects focus on basic and translational biomedical problems. The highly-visible LCI symposia also address the societal relevance of infectious diseases such as their long-term consequences or one-health aspects. Exclusive to Hamburg are the unique radiation sources of Europe of the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchroton (DESY) and European X-Ray Free-Electron Laser Facility (XFEL) at Science City Hamburg Bahrenfeld. Based on its strong expertise in structural biology and its current research programme “Molecules to Ecosystems”, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) at Science City Hamburg Bahrenfeld further consolidates Hamburg’s status as a pioneer in integrated structural biology approaches to infectious disease research and training. Research into a broad spectrum of pathogens (viruses, bacteria, parasites) and host organisms (human, animal, plant) collectively offers the potential to research and understand infection mechanisms in their entire breadth and structural depth.
The Center for Data Science in Infection and Immunity (CDI2) is currently being established and will provide a data science hub for big data integration and AI-assisted analysis of infectious diseases at different scales. CDI2 unites groups at UKE, UHH, LIV, and BNITM focussing on Data science in infectious diseases. Together with the Hub of Computing and Data Science (HCDS), the Center for Sustainable Research Data Management (RDM), as well as the strong expertise in structural data science at the CSSB, CDI2 will create a powerful resource for multidimensional data acquisition and assessment in the area of infectious diseases.
With its track record of innovation and infrastructure development, Hamburg is well-placed to meet the abovementioned academic and social challenges through ongoing transdisciplinary collaboration. In 2005, this enabled the University’s DFG application for the Cluster of Excellence Gateways to Health: How Pathogens Shape Global Life (Gateways). Gateways is aimed at combining the participants’ various research cultures to foster active social commitment that extends beyond research.