The research group on innate immunity and bacterial infections not only consist of postdoc’s, PhD students, and technicians. We also offer bachelor and master students the opportunity to follow a trainee internship and to participate in the different research projects.

Regardless of the specific subject, being the complement system, phage display, bacterial glycobiology, or phagocyte biology, many techniques and experimental setups are common in the research group. These techniques are both in the field of microbiology and the host defence employing molecular biology (bacterial protein expression, mutagenesis, gene regulation, knock-outs, eukaryotic receptor expression and mutagenesis), protein and carbohydrate chromatography and analysis (including purification of host defence proteins), functional assays using flow cytometry, confocal and electron microscopy, and some in-vivo infection models. The students become a full member of the participating research group with daily supervision. Moreover, because usually several students participate and employ comparable techniques there is also crosstalk between the students and other members of the group. Weekly general meeting of the complete innate immune evasion group and journal club meetings ensures the students are informed on the broad aspects of the research field.

The students not only contribute to the experiments presented in our publications but also keep the atmosphere lively and encouraging for all the members of our group.

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