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Research group Eva Herker
The Herker lab studies the cell biological and metabolic consequences of virus infection with a focus on lipid metabolic processes and host cell lipid droplets (LDs). Our focus is on positive-sense RNA viruses of the human pathogenic Flaviviridae family. In addition to chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, which affects over 70 million people and causes over 400,000 deaths annually, the flaviviruses transmitted by mosquitoes and ticks such as dengue (DENV), yellow fever (YFV), Zika (ZIKV), West Nile (WNV), and tick-born encephalitis virus (TBEV) cause severe acute infections that contribute significantly to the disease burden, especially in developing countries.