Dr. Lisa Maier is a junior research group leader in the Cluster of Excellence “Controlling Microbes to Fight Infections” (CMFI) in Tübingen. She specializes in the gut microbiome. Her group studies antibiotics and other drugs and tries to find out to what extent these affect the health of our intestinal microbiome. Lisa Maier's research aims to determine exactly which drugs cause which effects.
Microbial communities, so-called microbiomes, colonize the surfaces of the human body. In addition to bacteria that have a positive effect on human health, the microbiome also contains potentially fatal pathogens. Broad-spectrum antibiotics have often been used against these pathogens in the past few decades. It is now clear that this not only promotes the development of antibiotic resistance, but in many cases also damages the microbiome as a whole. Therefore, the researchers at the CMFI Cluster of Excellence now want to develop a new strategy for controlling infections.
Their goal is to develop new, targeted active ingredients that have a positive effect on microbiomes. It is known that beneficial bacteria can keep their dangerous conspecifics at bay. In order to understand the underlying mechanisms and make them usable, researchers from molecular, bioinformatics and clinical disciplines are to work together within the framework of the Cluster of Excellence.
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