Scientific program

All doctoral projects are in the field of microbiome and infection research, aiming at a better understanding of the microbial community defining or occurring in diverse diseases and possibilities to interfere with therapies or drugs for a targeted modulation.

The fields of pharmaceutical, bioinformatics and drug research are challenged to use the growing knowledge of microbiome research especially from the clinic to develop chemotherapeutics and treatment modalities avoiding problems of current drugs (e.g., resistance development, neglected microbial metabolism, unintended microbiota alterations) in close collaboration with clinical partners.

Exploitation of microbiota research for drug discovery and development holds potential for new prophylactic or therapeutic interventions against chronic inflammatory and infective diseases. Both the pharmaceutical industry and academia require a new generation of scientists well-trained in interdisciplinary research. The 15 individual research projects are structured in three clusters as depicted in the figure.