New strategies to combat sepsis

Miguel Che Parreira Soares

Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Portugal

Sepsis is a disease caused by an uncontrolled response of our body against a bacterial infection. Antibiotics do not always work to combat sepsis, which affects about 30 million people a year and kills 6 million.

Sepsis causes physiological alterations that affect glucose metabolism and organ dysfunction until organ failure. The project proposes to develop new therapeutic strategies not focused on eliminating bacteria, such as antibiotics, but on preventing organ failure.

The project focuses on the study of genes associated with the regulation of glucose metabolism, involved in the development of the disease. The research will analyze the molecular mechanisms of the liver, pancreas and skeletal muscle of mice and then apply it to humans.

Michael Bauer, Jena University, Germany

Metabolic reprograming in sepsis

€500,000