Biochemical Journal Poster Prize winner

Alexander Holweg

Alexander Holweg was trained as a biologist focused on Parasitology at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany. He received a Master's Degree in 2006 with his diploma thesis dealing with the host finding mechanisms of schistosome larvae performed in the laboratory of Professor Wilfried Haas. Afterwards he turned to study antimicrobial proteins in the innate immune defence and started working on his Ph.D. project supervised by Professor André Gessner in the Institute of Clinical Microbiology, Immunology and Hygiene at the University Hospital Erlangen. The aim of the project was to investigate the expression of the BPI (bactericidal/permeability increasing protein) in clinical samples of cystic fibrosis patients and to gain more insight into the in vivo function of this antimicrobial protein by applying animal models. Therefore BPI-deficient and transgenic mice were generated and analysed in different infection models of acute pneumonia and LPS (lipopolysaccharide)- mediated septic shock. In the spring of 2011 the group will move to the Institute of Clinical Microbiology at the University Hospital in Regensburg, Germany.