High-Throughput and Single Cell Approaches in Infection Biology

Infections with bacterial, viral or eukaryotic pathogens are characterized by an active interplay between the virulence determinants of the pathogen and the host response. This process is accompanied by major changes in gene expression of both pathogen and host. The ongoing development of novel high-throughput approaches now allows for global transcriptome, proteome as well as metabolome analyses of host-pathogen interactions and for functional screens to identify host and pathogen factors that impact infections. Furthermore, novel single-cell approaches and microfluidics technologies now facilitate gene expression and infection analyses of individual cells and to study phenotypic variations within bacterial populations that contribute to survival or establishment of infections. The objective of this workshop is to bring together researchers working in different disciplines such as infection biology, microbiology, cell biology, RNA Biology and biotechnology. New approaches and methods to study host-pathogen interactions will be discussed with a focus on infections with bacterial pathogens.