Interviews

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15 May 2012 - PROTEOMICS, BIOINFORMATICS
"I always need to know what my research is for"
Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, biofilms
Prof. Dr. Katharina Riedel is Professor for microbiology at the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-University in Greifswald, Germany, vice director of the Institute for Microbiology and head of the AG "Physiological Proteomics & Bioinformatics". Her main research interests are the molecular basis of infections caused by opportunistic pathogens and metaproteomics of microbial communities in terrestic and aquatic environments. [ more ]
28 March 2012 - ZOONOTIC DISEASES
“Wild animals are important reservoirs for pathogens”
zoonotic diseases, veterinary antibiotics, Friedrich Loeffler, brucella, Schmallenberg virus, BSE, foot-and-mouth-disease
“Virological research is increasingly focusing on wild animal populations”, Thomas Mettenleiter, President of the Friedrich Loeffler Institute for Animal Health, recounts in this interview. This trend follows researchers’ increasing appreciation for the fact that many zoonotic diseases originate in wild animals. [ more ]
17 November 2011 - ANTHRAX
“We are trying to decontaminate thousands of hectares of land”
Anthrax, Bacillus anthracis, bioweapons, decontamination
Les Baillie is a professor of microbiology at Cardiff University. His main research interest is a bacterium made famous for its potential as a bioweapon: Bacillus anthracis, responsible for “anthrax”. His research takes him regularly to regions of northern Turkey where anthrax is endemic. In this interview he explains why the people living there are accustomed to living with the bug, and how he and his colleagues will try to break the bug’s infection cycle. [ more ]
19 November 2010 - STRUCTURAL BIOLOGY
“We still know very little”
structural biology, Listeria, Escherichia coli
Dirk Heinz is head of the Helmholtz Centre of Infection Research and also heads its department of structural biology. In this interview he tells how the biggest achievement of structural biology nowadays is the ability to describe the shape of every tooth of the key in the lock-and-key principle of how antibodies fight intruding pathogens, and what the lock that fits this key looks like. [ more ]
6 December 2009 - FUNGAL INFECTIONS
“Microscopy isn’t old fashioned”
Aspergillus fumigatus, fungal infections
Matthias Gunzer is a professor of immunology at University of Magdeburg. In this interview he explains why Aspergillus fumigatus, a fungus ubiquitous in the air, is extremely dangerous for individuals who do not have an intact immune system. And how high-tech microscopy helps to understand how the fungus spores make their way into the lung alveoli and how they are attacked and destroyed by cells of an intact immune system. [ more ]
8 November 2009 - INFECTIOUS DISEASES
“We try to deliver the right therapy as soon as possible”
H1N1, swine flu, antibiotic resistance, gonorrhea
Jan Buer heads the Institute of Medical Microbiology at the University Hospital Duisburg-Essen. While he is a trained physician, his work rarely takes him to the bedside of patients. In this interview he explains why nevertheless working with “real” patients is essential for effective research. And he gives us an insight into hospital work, telling which steps and measures are taken when a patient with symptoms of an unknown infectious disease is hospitalized. [ more ]
13 October 2009 - EPIDEMIOLOGY
“Prevention is just as important as individual therapy”
epidemiology, HIV, AIDS
Andrea Ammon heads the “Surveillance” department at the European Centre for Diseases Control and Prevention. Her task is to implement a standardized method of data acquisition for reportable infectious diseases throughout the European Union. In this interview she explains why the fledgling science of epidemiology is of growing importance, and how difficult it is to build up a sound database of epidemiological data in order to prevent future outbreaks. [ more ]
30 September 2009 - VACCINE DEVELOPMENT
"Finding a link between infection and protection from a particular disease"
autoimmune diseases, H1N1, influenza
Bhagirath Singh is Scientific Director of the Institute of Infection and Immunity, Canada. In this interview he explains how, using his background in chemistry, he was able to demonstrate in the 1980s that a small peptide can induce the same immune response as a large protein and why this started a new way of thinking in immunology, and why it completely changed the way we approach vaccine production today. [ more ]
6 April 2009 - MENINGOCOCCAL DISEASE
“Clinical medicine is limping behind”
meningococci, Neisseria meningitidis
Petter Brandtzaeg heads the Infectious Disease Unit at Ullevål Hospital in Norway and is a professor of paediatrics at the University of Oslo. Trained as a physician, he started his scientific career rather late. In this interview he explains how analyzing patients led him suddenly to a discovery in human pathology that nobody had ever observed before, and how this discovery drove him to a career in science. [ more ]
12 May 2008 - IMMUNE DEFENCE
“The beauty of the immune system is fascinating”
cytomegalovirus, TNF, tumor necrosis factor
“If I hadn’t taken the genetic road, I would have gotten nowhere at all with my work,” says Bruce Beutler. Today, he heads the Department of Genetics and Immunology at Scripps Research Institute and is attempting to characterize the resistome; genes encoding proteins that make a life-or-death difference when one is infected with a particular microbe. He became interested in infection research while reading “Microbe Hunters” when he was a child [ more ]