17.10.2025
Joint meeting: Northern Germany Meeting on Infection, Immunology & Inflammation
On Wednesday, October 8, 125 researchers from across Northern Germany gathered for the first Northern Germany Meeting on Infection, Immunology & Inflammation at Research Centre Borstel’s (FZB) Manor House. The meeting was co-organized and co-hosted by “New Developments in Immunology, Inflammation, & Infection” (NDI³) – i.e. twelve PhD students from the FZB – and the NordInfect initiative, led by researchers from the Centre for Structural Systems Biology (CSSB), the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) and Kiel University (CAU).
This year’s program featured internationally renowned invited speakers, including Maximiliano Gutierrez (Francis Crick Institute), Susanne Häußler (HZI), Christian Karsten (ISEF, UKSH), Silke Meiners (CAU/FZB) and Olivier Neyrolles (IPBS). In addition, early-career scientists had the opportunity to present their research through talks, posters, and engaging edutainment talks. Participants came from more than ten research institutions located in Borstel, Hamburg, Lübeck, Kiel and Greifswald.
NDI³ and NordInfect share a common mission: to foster infection, inflammation and immunology research through collaboration, innovation and community, with a strong focus on bacterial pathogenesis. The meeting served as a platform for early-career researchers and established experts to exchange ideas, highlight new findings, and strengthen networks across Northern Germany and beyond.
“The successful collaboration between the initiatives was key in making this joint meeting a memorable event. We were pleased to welcome a large number of attendees and to witness many engaging, insightful discussions," said Prof. Caroline Barisch, co-organizer of the event and group leader at CSSB, FZB and the Biology Department of the University of Hamburg. The presented research projects addressed key questions in the field, such as: How bacteria survive in metal-toxic environments, how the membrane repair dynamics in tuberculosis function, and how technological advances such as whole-genome sequencing shed light on pathogenicity potential and support the prediction and combat of antibiotic resistance.
This year’s co-organized event was made possible through the support of RTG 2771 Humans and Microbes, biomol, Macherey-Nagel, Novogene, ibidi, Sarstedt, BioLegend, CAPRICORN Scientific, STEMCELL Technologies, FZB and CSSB.
