Welcome to the Kleist-group!

Our RNA research team, consisting of group members at the FU/RKI, supported by the Smyth team at HZI (Würzburg)/CNRS(Strasbourg) developed a fast, reliable and cost-saving method for barcoding and demultiplexing direct-RNA (dRNA) sequencing data generated by Oxford Nanopore Technology (ONT) sequencing devices, paving the way for more sophisticated experimental designs for epitranscriptome research (link to…

With great pride, we can announce that our latest work on the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 got published in Nature! Our research team, consisting of group members at the FU and RKI, supported by colleagues at Math+ and in unit FG17 and MF1 at the Robert-Koch Institute developed a model that can predict, based on humoral…

We welcome two new members in the team: Antonia will do a PhD on PrEP modelling, while Benjamin will work as post-Doc on modelling the long-COVID burden in Germany (and elsewhere),

We just published our latest par on the uptake of HIV PrEP in Germany since its introduction in the statutory health system: Uptake increasing with differences between urban and rural areas and large impacts of COVID on uptake dynamics. Check it out: https://rdcu.be/dLUsk

Our latest work on systematic errors in Oxford Nanopore Technology’s (ONT) based direct RNA sequencing are published, with important insights for downstream analysis. There are profound differences with regards to the ability to correctly base-call certain motifs within a transcript. These results can be used to calculate confidence in e.g. mutation or modification detection and…

In an integrative experimental-computational work, we could unravel the intriguing mechanisms by which neuronal wiring in developing brains is achieved: We showed for the fly’s visual system that neuronal wiring is achieved by self-organisation during a process called ‘neural superposition’. While this process is inherently stochastic, it results in a robust formation of the fly’s…

Our latest work on adherence-efficacy relationships of FTC/TDF-based HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis got published in Nature Medicine. We provide compelling evidence that FTC/TDF-based PrEP works very well in protecting heterosexual women from HIV infection. Since FTC/TDF are cheap and available in resource-constrained settings, these findings could help establishing PrEP as a major pillar in preventing HIV…

Malin Müller and Lara Fuhrmann joined the lab! Malin is finishing her master’s in Systems Biology at Maastricht University. She joins the team for her master’s thesis on modelling HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis. Lara is a PhD student in Niko Beerenwinkels lab at ETH (Basel) and also member of the ITN “ViroInf”. She joins our lab…

We just finalised and submitted our comprehensive analysis of Truvada based-PrEP efficacy in women: Synthesis of protective PrEP adherence levels in cis-gender women using convergent clinical and bottom-up modelling. We hope that the work will help to clarify apparent mis-conceptions regarding putative gender-differences in PrEP efficacy and with regards to adherence demands. We would like…

We just uploaded our latest analysis of systematic sequencing errors in Oxford Nanopore Technology (ONT) -based direct RNA sequencing and hope that this comprehensive analysis will contribute to the further development of the technique. Congratulations Liu-Wei and team! Preprint available at: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.03.29.534691