Clinician Scientist-Programm 2022

Thema: "Effect of ageing on host metabolism and defense mechanisms in a murine model of Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia."

Zusammenfassung:
Bacteremia with Staphylcocoocus (S.) aureus is a severe infectious disease with a high burden of consecutive morbidity and mortality, which affects predominantly the elderly. S. aureus is the 2nd most isolated pathogen in bloodstream infections. Previous studies of host defense mechanisms in severe bacterial infections showed that maintaining metabolic and parenchymal functional and structural homeostasis represents a key determinant of disease outcome preventing infection-associated organ dysfunction. These studies focused on polymicrobial mostly gram-negative sepsis and were conducted in young animals that are only a poor surrogate for patients. In the BAUCIS study we aim at studying the effect of ageing on organ dysfunction, pathogen load, transcriptional program, and inflammatory as well as metabolic response in young vs. old mice subjected to an experimental model of S. aureus bacteremia. This project will provide new molecular insights in a translational manner studying a clinically very relevant disease entity with state-of-the-art invasive and non-invasive techniques that have not been deployed in this indication before.