Goals & Tasks

Infectious disease research is one of the key research areas at the FAU and the UK Erlangen. The ECI focuses on the analysis of the pathogenesis of infections in order to improve the prevention, diagnosis, and therapy of infectious diseases in the long run. Accordingly, the ECI aims at providing a close scientific interaction between microbiologists, virologists, and infectious disease immunologists with medical doctors in the clinics that deal with infectious diseases (e.g. specialists for infectious diseases, dermatology, hematology and oncology) as well as pathologists, clinical pharmacologists, pharmaceutical, organic, and inorganic chemists, and bioengineers. The necessity for an interdisciplinary and interfaculty cooperation and for combining the diverse scientific strength and know-how in the area of infection research becomes particularly apparent whenever novel anti-infectives, vaccines, or therapeutics for the treatment of immunopathological processes during chronic infections are to be developed. The broad spectrum of expertise of the ECI members in medicine and science will serve to open up new fields of research.