Award for excellent doctoral theses at the Tropical Institute

Dr Barbara Honecker receives the doctoral award in the Natural Sciences category for her work on the role of extracellular vesicles of the tropical parasite Entamoeba histolytica in the communication between the parasite and the host's immune cells in amebiasis. This intestinal disease can cause severe liver complications, known as amoebic liver abscesses, in which these immune cells play a key role. Extracellular vesicles are small particles that cells secrete for communication purposes. Dr Honecker's research demonstrated how these vesicles could contribute to the parasite's pathogenicity, thus providing new approaches for a more targeted study of disease mechanisms.

For her experiments, Dr Honecker combined molecular biological, immunological, and bioinformatics methods. Her dissertation impressed the jury with its high degree of innovation, technical complexity, and its significance for understanding tropical infectious diseases. Dr Honecker also worked on a number of projects. Honecker as doctoral spokesperson at the BNITM and in the Leibniz PhD Network for the interests of young scientists.

Dr Valeria Füsslin is being awarded the doctoral prize in the Medicine category. She investigated how antibiotic resistance in Vibrio cholerae can be determined using whole-genome sequencing and specialized software. This bacterial pathogen causes cholera, a life-threatening diarrheal disease that occurs primarily in regions with inadequate drinking water supplies. Conventional resistance tests require time-consuming cultivation of the bacteria in the laboratory. Dr Füsslin's work shows that nanopore sequencing could lead to the development of a faster, universally applicable, and cost-effective method for resistance determination – with significant significance for the treatment and monitoring of the disease, especially in resource-poor countries.