Hector Fellow Ralf Barten­schlager is spokesper­son of a new Collab­o­ra­tive Research Center of the DFG

The German Research Founda­tion (DFG) is estab­lish­ing ten new Collab­o­ra­tive Research Centers (CRCs) to further support top-level research at German univer­si­ties. The new CRCs will receive a total of approx­i­mately 114 Million Euros in funding for an initial four-year period, start­ing on July 1, 2020. Six of the new networks are CRCs/Transregio (TRR), which are spread across several appli­cant universities.

Hector Fellow Ralf Barten­schlager acts as spokesper­son for the new CRC/TRR 179, which deals with the causes and the healing or chroni­fi­ca­tion of infec­tions with hepati­tis viruses. So far, research in this area has focused on individ­ual signal­ing pathways or molec­u­lar factors without suffi­ciently consid­er­ing the inter­ac­tion between the infected organ and the antivi­ral immune response. Prof. Barten­schlager and his scien­tific colleagues are now inves­ti­gat­ing these inter­ac­tions in an integra­tive approach. The scien­tists are aiming to develop strate­gies that could cure chronic hepati­tis virus infections.

The partners in the Collab­o­ra­tive Research Center/Transregio are the Univer­sity of Freiburg and the Techni­cal Univer­sity of Munich. The associ­a­tion receives funding of around 13.8 Million Euros.