• Workplace: Biozentrum, University of Basel

• Link(s): About the Research Group

• Biography: Dehio studied Biology at the University of Cologne and also obtained from there his PhD for work at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding in Cologne. From 1993-1995 he was post-doctoral researcher at the Institute Pasteur in Paris, France. In 1995 he became a group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Biology in Tübingen, Germany and habilitated there in 1999. In 2000 he became assistant professor at the Biozentrum, University of Basel. Since 2012 he is full professor for Molecular Microbiology at the Biozentrum. He is a member of EMBO and the German Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina. Since 2019, Dehio is Director of the National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) “Anti-Resist” that develops new approaches to combat antibiotic resistance.

• Current activities/ scientific goals: Dehio studies chronic bacterial infections at the molecular and cellular level. The focus is on bacterial effector proteins injected into the host cells by a bacterial nanomachine, the socalled type IV secretion system. These effector proteins alter targeted signaling pathways and the physiology of the host cells, which facilitate bacterial survival in the host.

In a different line of research, Dehio strives to understand the molecular basis of resilience to antibiotic action in uropathogenic Escherichia coli and Brucella melitensis. Related research activities center around a better understanding of pathogen physiology in patients and developing axenic and tissue-based model systems mimicking patient environments for studying molecular mechanisms underlying antibiotic resilience.

• Workplace: Biozentrum, University of Basel

• Link(s): About the Research Group

• Contact: Twitter

• Biography: Knut Drescher studied physics, majoring in theoretical physics, at the University of Oxford and, in 2011, earned his PhD in experimental biophysics at the University of Cambridge, UK. As a postdoc at Princeton University, USA, he moved into microbiology and began investigating bacterial communities, known as biofilms. In 2014 Knut Drescher became a research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology and a Professor of Biophysics at the Philipps-Universität Marburg. In 2020 he was appointed associate professor of Microbiology and Biophysics at the Biozentrum, Basel. His excellent scientific achievements are reflected in numerous awards, including three science prizes in 2019.

• Current activities/ scientific goals: As a biophysicist working in the field of microbiology, Drescher thinks across scientific disciplines: He combines biological processes with physical principles to understand how bacteria organize themselves, interact with each other and form resistant biofilms. Drescher’s findings may reveal new ways of preventing or dissolving biofilms. Since biofilms also develop on surfaces of medical devices, catheters or implants, they are a major problem in hospitals. To understand why bacteria form multicellular structures, such as biofilms and swarms, he investigates the properties and functions that these systems display, e.g. during the response to stresses like phages, antibiotics, or immune cells. Understanding the benefits that these multicellular structures provide for bacterial cells promises new paths which will enable prevention or interference with these communities.

• Workplace: Roche pRED, DTA I2O – Antibiotic Discovery group

• Contact: LinkedIn

• Biography: Maarten Vercruysse received his Ph.D. in Bioscience engineering from the University of Leuven (Belgium) in 2011. He continued as a Post-doctoral Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, Boston, USA). In 2014, Maarten joined Roche pRED (Basel, Switzerland) as one of the first scientists to rebuild the antibiotic discovery group and recently joined the Antibiotics Discovery leadership team.

• Current activities/ scientific goals: Maarten and the Antibiotic group aim to discover and develop novel classes of antibiotics against multi-drug resistant Gram-negative pathogens that represent the highest unmet medical need. The group uses various approaches to find and optimize new pharmacophores against validated and new targets. In addition, external collaborations with experts in the field are crucial in understanding how to overcome antibacterial resistance.

• Workplace: Roche pRED, DTA I2O - Infectious Diseases/Virology

• Biography: Tim Tellinghuisen received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in biology from the University of Massachusetts, and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Purdue University. He served as a postdoctoral fellow in virology at Rockefeller University in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Charles Rice. Tim served as a professor at The Scripps Research Institute for 12 years before becoming Head of Virology at Roche in 2017.

• Current activities/ scientific goals: Tim and his research group at Roche are focused on two major areas of research; discovery activity related to curative treatments for hepatitis B virus, and the study of respiratory viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, to identify therapeutics for this area of high unmet medical need. Tim also focuses on future emerging pandemic viral infections by searching for broadly acting antivirals therapies.