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"Diffusible Signals" to the point

Bacterial infectious diseases are among the most frequent causes of death worldwide. For about 100 years, antibiotics have been available as extremely successful drugs to combat bacterial infections. Due to antibiotic resistance, the most important drugs against infectious diseases are becoming increasingly ineffective. Furthermore, it seems that the development and course of infectious diseases, but also the protection against them, are influenced much more than previously assumed by the interactions of bacteria with each other and with human cells. Our interdisciplinary team of scientists from the Philipps University of Marburg, the Justus Liebig University of Giessen, and the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg will make use of the latest methods and techniques to study bacterial communication as the central basis of infection processes. By modifying this communication, new treatment approaches should strengthen the human immune system and weaken the bacterial attack.