26.06.2024
The Priority Programme SPP 2330, which was established in 2021 and is coordinated by Prof. Dr. Julia Frunzke from the Institute of Bio- and Geosciences (IBG-1), has secured additional funding of approximately 5.8 million euros from the German Research Foundation (DFG) for another three years. Twenty projects, supported by a central service project of the DSMZ, are working together to elucidate virus-host interactions in prokaryotes both at the single cell level and in the context of microbial communities using state-of-the-art methods. Central topics of the SPP are dedicated to viral cell biology, new anti-viral defence mechanisms and the effects of viruses on microbial communities, such as the human microbiome.
In the first funding period, the consortium was already able to make a significant contribution to forming an internationally competitive community providing new impulses to the research field of phage biology in Germany. This has also created an important basis for further developments in the field of applied science. Particularly in light of the rapidly growing threat of antimicrobial resistance, phages offer alternative approaches to combating and controlling bacterial pathogens and are therefore highly relevant for applications in medicine (phage therapy), food control and agriculture.