Öffentlicher Abendvortrag von Professor Dr. Sebastian Günther (Universität Greifswald) und Professorin Dr. Katharina Schaufler, Ph.D. (Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel)

The emergence of AMR bacteria is a phenomenon with severe public health relevance. Especially through the continuous increase of successful bacterial subtypes, we are now at the beginning of a “post-antibiotic” era with limited therapeutic options. Bacterial subtypes that combine AMR with fitness and pathogenicity spread rapidly across different ecologies including hospitals, animal husbandry and the environment. Understanding and exploiting their success features is of utmost importance to develop innovative therapeutic strategies in the One Health context exemplified by novel natural compounds with anti-biofilm activity.

From 1996-2001, Sebastian Günther studied pharmacy at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena. He then pursued his doctoral studies at the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology, Jena, with a focus on molecular detection of Actinomycetes. After pursuing his postdoctoral training at Helmholtz Center Hereon, Teltow and Free University of Berlin, he started working as group leader at the Institute of Microbiology and Epizootics and habilitated in molecular microbiology in 2015. He was appointed as chair for pharmaceutical biology at the University of Greifswald in 2017.

From 2006-2012, Katharina Schaufler studied veterinary medicine at the universities of Gießen and Madrid. She then pursued her doctoral studies at Free University of Berlin under the supervision of Prof. Lothar H. Wieler with a focus on AMR bacteria in the One Health context. After pursuing her postdoctoral training at Harvard University from 2017-2018, she was appointed junior professor at the University of Greifswald. Since 11/2020, she leads a BMBF junior research group on novel strategies to combat AMR pathogens and is professor for medical microbiology at Kiel University since 05/2021.

Moderation: Privatdozent Dr. Johann S. Ach