The funded infrastructure enables the Leibniz IPHT to investigate innovative biophotonic solutions for urgent medical questions, in particular for the diagnosis of infectious diseases and for the elucidation of pathogenesis mechanisms of infections that are difficult to treat, and to test them in initial research projects on biological and medical real samples. Within the framework of the project, the technological basis of the Leibniz IPHT is to be extended by special Raman and fluorescence technologies, but also by devices for the cultivation of biological samples, in order to develop new methods for the spectroscopic characterization of physiological interactions in infections. These new methods will shed light on the pathogenesis of difficult-to-treat chronic infections by characterizing the intracellular pathogen and rapidly recognizing the effect of antibiotics in order to identify resistant pathogens within a short period of time, but also to provide insights into the immune response to contact with microbial pathogens and to understand why patients develop sepsis. 

The project is financed by the Free State of Thuringia under the number 2016 FGI 0010 and co-financed by European Union funds within the framework of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).