Detail

Keywords

Adaptive Immunity; Communicable Diseases; Communication; Epidemiology; Host-Pathogen Interactions; Inflammation; Innate Immunity; Metabolism; Pathology, Molecular; Preventive Medicine; Public Health; Public Health Surveillance; T Cells; Virology

Research group(s)

• Bergthaler Lab
  Research Area: Infection Biology, Inflammation, Metabolism, Virology, Pathology, Evolution, Systems Biology
  Members:
  Andreas Bergthaler

Research interests

Our group (http://bergthalerlab.org) focuses on three main areas: i) disease-relevant mechanisms of immunometabolism in viral infections (e.g. Baazim et al. Nature Immunology 2019, Lercher et al. Immunity 2019, Baazim et al. Nature Reviews Immunology 2022) ii) advanced pathogen surveillance (e.g. Popa et al. Science Translational Medicine 2020, Agerer et al. Science Immunology 2021, Amman et al. Nature Biotechnology), and iii) developing new ways of citizen science, transdisciplinary approaches and science communication (e.g. the national scicomm channel FÄKT https://www.faekt.science/, communicating to 10-14 year old through social media and school curricula).

Our diverse and international team brings together researchers from different backgrounds (e.g. immunology, molecular biology, virology, bioinformatics, epidemiology, public health) and aims for excellence in science, teaching, mentorship, community service and outreach.

Techniques, methods & infrastructure

Disease models for infectious diseases, immunological, metabolic and pathological readouts, sequencing-based pathogen surveillance, bioinformatic pipelines, transdisciplinary approaches integrating various stakeholders.

Selected publications

1. Lercher, A. et al., 2019. Type I Interferon Signaling Disrupts the Hepatic Urea Cycle and Alters Systemic Metabolism to Suppress T Cell Function. Immunity, 51(6), pp.1074–1087.e9. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.immuni.2019.10.014.
2. Baazim, H. et al., 2019. CD8+ T cells induce cachexia during chronic viral infection. Nature Immunology, 20(6), pp.701–710. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41590-019-0397-y.
3. Amman, F. et al. (2022) ‘Viral variant-resolved wastewater surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 at national scale’, Nature Biotechnology, 40(12), pp. 1814–1822. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-022-01387-y.
4. Baazim, H., Antonio-Herrera, L. and Bergthaler, A. (2021) ‘The interplay of immunology and cachexia in infection and cancer’, Nature Reviews Immunology, 22(5), pp. 309–321. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41577-021-00624-w.
5. Popa, A. et al. (2020) ‘Genomic epidemiology of superspreading events in Austria reveals mutational dynamics and transmission properties of SARS-CoV-2’, Science Translational Medicine, 12(573). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.abe2555.