Research group Campylobacter
Contact person: Dr. Greta Gölz
Campylobacter spp. are Gram-negative, spiral-shaped, polar flagellated, microaerophilic bacteria. Campylobacter belong to the group of foodborne zoonotic agents causing infectious intestinal disease.
Detection and characterization of Campylobacter spp. from different food matrices are performed by microbiological and molecular biological methods.
Despite the low tenacity of Campylobacter spp. they are the most prevalent bacterial foodborne pathogens in the industrialized world, causing diarrhoe in humans. Up to today it is not clear how Campylobacter spp. overcome multiple environmental and technological stressors occurring during food processing, as Campylobacter lacks many of the stress response mechanisms that have been described so far in other bacteria.
The aim of our research is to analyze the stress responses on transcriptome and proteome level.
Furthermore, strategies to reduce Campylobacter loads pre-harvest by application of probiotics and food additives in pigs or post-harvest by bacteriophages are investigated.
