German Centre for Infection Research (DZIF)

Tuberculosis and malaria are two of the most prevalent infections in humans and major causes of morbidity and mortality in impoverished populations in the tropics. We established an experimental model system to study outcome of malaria-tuberculosis coinfection in mice after challenge with both pathogens via their natural route of infection.

We describe a mouse model of experimental cerebral malaria and show how inflammatory and microvascular pathology can be tracked in vivo using magnetic resonance imaging.

For efficient control of mosquito borne virus transmission, the knowledge of the vector potential of respective mosquitoes is of particular interest. We describe forced salivation as a method to analyze vector competence of Aedes albopictus and three different Culex taxa for the transmission of Zika virus.

The elucidation of the mode-of-action of a novel antibiotic is a challenging task in the drug discovery process. The goal of the method described here is the application of isothermal microcalorimetry using calScreener in antibacterial profiling to provide additional insight into drug-microbe interactions.

A three-channel dual-reporter fluorescence flow analysis system was used to develop a bead-based multiplex immunoassay that simultaneously evaluates serum samples for IgG and IgM elicited against multiple antigens of different Borrelia species that cause Lyme borreliosis in Europe and North America.