Two well-received presentations at the Kiel Marina Summer Festival

5 August 2011 Prof. Stefan Ehlers and Prof. Uta Jappe, both of the Research Center Borstel, representing the Inflammation Research Excellence Cluster during the Marina Summer on Science Day in Kiel on 5 August, gave two presentations which generated intense interest among the visitors and led to a lively discussion. 

With his remarks concerning “The new tuberculosis – the return of the white plague”, Prof. Ehlers pointed out that the “white plague” has been by no means defeated, but still continues to infect around 10 million people per year with TB pathogens. What’s new is most notably the spread of pathogens that are resistant to the key antibiotics. Prof. Ehlers used the occasion of this dangerous global trend towards tuberculosis that is ever more difficult to treat to, on the basis of current research findings, clearly and intelligibly inform the public about the spread, the disease process, the defense against infections as well as the treatment and prevention of tuberculosis in 2011. While there are bright spots, particularly in the diagnosis of multiresistant TB bacteria (in this case a testing system has been developed, which can recognize multiresistant TB pathogens in sputum within two hours), there is still much to do, especially in the development of new antibiotics for TB therapies.

For this, the group led by Prof. Ehlers has developed a model system in mice that reflects the progression of TB in humans very well and is therefore well suited for testing for pilot substances.

Prof. Uta Jappe brought attention to a further trend in the development of diseases: allergic diseases are steadily increasing, with food allergies taking on a special status in that they can be very severe and sometimes even fatal. Research is currently working intensively on the identification of allergenic structures. Here, the complexity of meals and additive factors such as certain pharmaceuticals and personal lifestyles, as well as cross reactions with other allergens, pose a major challenge. There is a great deal of activity at present in both clinical as well as scientific allergology: on one hand the identification of allergenic structures at the molecular level has already significantly improved allergy diagnostics, on the other, there has been very important progress in regard to the development of therapeutic strategies for food allergies.