CRC1279 goes public: “studium generale” and international students

This has been an eventful week for CRC speaker Frank Kirchhoff: he presented HIV/AIDS as well as CRC1279 to the broad audience of “studium generale” and a group of international students.

On Monday evening, he gave a talk within the program of “studium generale”. During the winter semester, presentations termed “scientists in dialogue” (German: WissenschaftlerInnen im Dialog) take place on a weekly basis at Ulm University. They are open to the public and offer insights into different research areas. Frank Kirchhoff gave a talk about human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). He illustrated the size ratios between virions and humans and explained why only one of at least 13 zoonotic transmissions of immunodeficiency viruses from apes or monkey to humans is responsible for the AIDS pandemic. Moreover, he discussed current treatment options and future perspectives.

Just the day after, Kirchhoff presented his “favorite virus” and current research to a group of 17 international students from the Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB) in Mainz. Moreover, he underlined the enormous variety of peptides in the human body and how they can be exploited to discover novel bioactive agents against infections and cancers in CRC 1279. A lot questions from the highly interested students came up and even a small gift was handed to Frank Kirchhoff in the end.