Welcome to the Sino-German Transregional
Collaborative Research Center TRR60:

“Mutual interaction of chronic viruses with cells of the immune system: from fundamental research to
immunotherapy and vaccination”

持续性病毒感染中病毒与免疫细胞的相互作用
从基础研究到免疫治疗与预防策略

Essen - Wuhan - Bochum - Shanghai

The TRR60 was funded from July 2009 and ended in June 2018. Our joint scientific work will be continued within the innovative network of the Sino-German Virtual Institute for Viral Immunology SGVIVI. More info: www.uni-due.de/sgvivi

The WHO estimates that almost 500 million people world-wide are chronically infected with HBV, HCV or HIV. The three viruses are transmitted similarly and vaccination against HIV and HCV has not been possible until now. Interestingly, there are substantial differences in the rate of viral persistence after infection with the three viruses. Therefore it is important to compare mechanisms of viral persistence between these viruses. All viruses have to evade the innate and the adaptive immune system to become chronic. The aim of the TRR60 was to intensively study these mechanism in cell culture, animal models, and patients.

In the last 8 years the TRR60 studied the interaction of the immune system with several different viruses that establish chronic infections in their hosts. These studies provided new concepts of immune regulation and dysregulation in chronic virus infections that can now be utilized for therapeutic approaches and vaccine development. The focus was on HIV, HCV, and HBV because therapeutic cure was rarely achieved for these chronic infections. Novel immunotherapy options, especially combination therapies, were tested in preclinical models of infectious diseases. Some of the possible new targets for immunotherapy were first described to play a role in infectious diseases by PIs of the TRR60. In order to test new tools for immunotherapy against chronic infections sophisticated animal models are needed. It has therefore always been a focus of the TRR60 to develop and improve animal models for chronic virus infections. Basic findings on immune regulation from animal models also need to be confirmed in patient studies, which is why we analysed patient samples from very defined large cohorts of HIV-, HCV, or HBV-infected individuals in almost all TRR60 projects. The overall aim of the TRR60 project was to develop novel immunotherapies or combination therapies to achieve improved control of chronic viral infections.

世界卫生组织估计，全球大约有5亿受到HBV，HCV或HIV慢性感染。对于HCV和HIV感染，迄今尚缺乏有效的疫苗，而这三种病毒同样在传播。有趣的是，这三种病毒感染后导致病毒持续感染的机率却明显不同。因此，比较HBV、HCV和HIV持续感染形成过程的差异显得非常重要。所有病毒感染要发展成为持续感染，必须逃避机体天然免疫和获得性免疫系统的识别与攻击。在本项目中，这些机制将在细胞培养、动物模型和临床患者中进行深入的研究。这些研究对于如何治疗或预防慢性病毒感染提供了新的线索。

September 2015 Interactive app for understanding infectious diseases

The TRR60 has contibuted to the interactive tablet-app launched and offered by DFG free of charge: 

MenschMikrobe – Die interaktive App zur Infektionsforschung
Eine faszinierende Tour durch die Welt der Mikroorganismen – für Experten, Laien und Schüler
more info: www.dfg.de/menschmikrobe or see the info-flyer