Researchers Database
You have entered the IISP: Interactive Information System on Pathogenomics
If you would like to insert information about your research or research group, please click to the following link to download the form. After filling it out, please send back to m.karrasch@fz-juelich.de or g.gebreselassie@fz-juelich.de.
Here you will find information about Research groups in the PathoGenoMics fields from the ERA-NET partner countries (Austria, Finland, France, Hungary, Israel, Latvia, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain).
This information is supposed to support cooperation between researchers from different European countries
and thus enhance the development of a European Research Area for PathoGenoMics .
The following information is available and can be searched for:
- researcher names
- Institution of the respective researcher, city and country of his/her institution
- Contact data of the researcher (address, phone, email)
- Research topics and studied microorganisms of the researcher
- Special techniques applied by the researcher
- Potential cooperation topics suggested by the researcher
If you have any comments/questions or if you would like to add some information, please contact m.karrasch@fz-juelich.de
| Name: | Prof. Dr. Mizrachi Nebenzahl, Yaffa | ||
| Address: | |||
| Institution: | The Pediatric Infectious Disease Unit, Soroka University Medical Center, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, School of health sciences Ben gurion university of the Negev | ||
| City: | Beer Sheva | Zip: | 84105 |
| Country: | Israel | Phone: | +972-8-6400838 |
| Fax: | +972-8-6403632 | ||
| Email: | ymizr@bgumail.bgu.ac.il | ||
| www: | |||
| Research Topics: |
| The commensal pathogen Streptococcus pneumoniae remains one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. The existing polysaccharide based anti-pneumococcal vaccine protects adults but is inefficacious in infants. The polysaccharide conjugated vaccines are better at protecting infants but are limited in strain coverage and are complex and expensive to produce. Identification of future therapeutic modalities requires detailed study of the dynamic interplay between pathogen and host, which leads either to S. pneumoniae clearance or to disease. We hypothesize that inappropriate or altered immune responses underlie the mechanisms that turn a benign state of carriage into clinical disease. We will study and compare the relative importance of bacterial virulence factor such as adhesins and the immune system recognition of the pathogen to disease development. Using a multidisciplinary approach we identified previously a group of S. pneumoniae surface exposed proteins that are involved in bacterial interaction with the host, some of which exhibit in infants an age dependent immunogenicity correlating inversely with pneumococcal morbidity. Recognition of pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) by the innate immune system is initiated by pathogen (or pattern) recognition receptors (PRRs), which are localized on host cell surfaces, intracellularly and in the extracellular space. Moreover, resolution of infection by an obligatory intracellular pathogen requires the Th1 type of adaptive immune responses and the resolution of an infection by an obligatory extracellular pathogen requires the Th2 type of adaptive immune responses. However, the complete nature of the protective immune response to extracellular bacteria is unclear and demonstrates a mixed pattern. |
| Organisms studied: |
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| Special methods / technologies: |
| Phage display, Proteins bioinformatics, protein cloning, animal models for disease and vaccination |
| Suggestions for potential research cooperations: |
| S. pneumoniae pathogenesis, bacterial virulence factor identification, vaccine development |