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Prof Jörg Vogel

About

Prof. Jörg Vogel is the founding director of the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI) as well as the director of the Institute of Molecular Infection Biology (IMIB) at the University of Würzburg, Germany. As world-leading scientist in the field of RNA biology, Jörg Vogel is considered a pioneer in the application and development of high-throughput sequencing methods for the analysis of individual infected cells as well as interactions between pathogenic bacteria and their hosts. 

Prof. Jörg Vogel studied biochemistry at Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany, and at Imperial College, London, UK. In 1999, he received his PhD from Humboldt University with a thesis on Group II intron splicing. He spent his postdoctoral years at Uppsala University, Sweden (2000-2001) and as an EMBO fellow at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel (2002-2003) before he started an Independent Junior Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, Germany (2004-2010). He became Full Professor and Director of the Institute for Molecular Infection Biology at the University of Würzburg in 2009. As of 2017, he is the Director of the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI) in Würzburg.

Jörg Vogel is an elected member of EMBO, the German National Academy of Sciences, as well as the European and American Academies of Microbiology. In 2017, he received a Leibniz Prize, Germany’s most prestigious research award, for his ground-breaking contributions to the understanding of regulatory RNA molecules in infection biology.

Prof. Vogel’s group seek to understand the full (noncoding) RNA world of bacterial pathogens and use RNA-centric approaches to targeting pathogens and manipulating microbiota. A major innovative goal is the comprehensive simultaneous RNA-based profiling of the pathogen and the infected host in real time and at single-cell resolution; where applicable, this should also include co-colonizing microbiota. Researchers at the Vogel lab focus on the mode of action of those noncoding RNA molecules that are crucial for the virulence of the pathogen, differentially expressed upon exposure to the host, or impact gene expression in interacting members of the microbiota. The knowledge obtained will be exploited for therapeutic intervention with clinically relevant bacterial pathogens.


2025

Functional characterization of the DUF1127-containing small protein YjiS of Salmonella Typhimurium

Venturini E, Maaß S, Bischler T, Becher D, Vogel J, Westermann AJ (2025)

microLife 6: uqae026DOI: 10.1093/femsml/uqae026

Meeting report ASOBIOTICS 2024: an interdisciplinary symposium on antisense-based programmable RNA antibiotics

Vogel J, Faber F, Barquist L, Sparmann A, Popella L, Ghosh C (2025)

RNA (Online ahead of print)DOI: 10.1261/rna.080347.124

2024

The RNA landscape of the human commensal Segatella copri reveals a small RNA essential for gut colonization

El Mouali Y, Tawk C, Huang KD, Amend L, Lesker TR, Ponath F, Vogel J, Strowig T (2024)

Cell Host & Microbe 32 (11): 1910-1926.e6DOI: 10.1016/j.chom.2024.09.008

Refining the transcriptional landscapes for distinct clades of virulent phages infecting Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Putzeys L, Wicke L, Boon M, van Noort V, Vogel J, Lavigne R (2024)

microLife 5: uqae002DOI: 10.1093/femsml/uqae002

Cooperation of regulatory RNA and the RNA degradosome in transcript surveillance

Bandyra KJ, Fröhlich KS, Vogel J, Rodnina M, Goyal A, Luisi BF (2024)

Nucleic Acids Research 52 (15): 9161-9173DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkae455

Meeting report 'Microbiology 2023: from single cell to microbiome and host', an international interacademy conference in Würzburg

Cossart P, Hacker J, Holden DH, Normark S, Vogel J (2024)

microLife 5: uqae008DOI: 10.1093/femsml/uqae008

Transcriptome fine-mapping in Fusobacterium nucleatum reveals FoxJ, a new σE-dependent small RNA with unusual mRNA activation activity

Ponath F, Zhu Y, Vogel J (2024)

mBio 15 (4): e0353623DOI: 10.1128/mbio.03536-23

Phage proteins target and co-opt host ribosomes immediately upon infection

Gerovac M, Chihara K, Wicke L, Böttcher B, Lavigne R, Vogel J (2024)

Nature Microbiology 9 (3): 787-800DOI: 10.1038/s41564-024-01616-x

Improved RNA stability estimation through Bayesian modeling reveals most Salmonella transcripts have subminute half-lives

Jenniches L, Michaux C, Popella L, Reichardt S, Vogel J, Westermann AJ, Barquist L (2024)

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 121 (14): e2308814121DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2308814121

A comparative analysis of peptide-delivered antisense antibiotics employing diverse nucleotide mimics

Ghosh C, Popella L, Dhamodharan V, Jung J, Dietzsch J, Barquist L, Höbartner C, Vogel J (2024)

RNA 30 (6): 624-643DOI: 10.1261/rna.079969.124

Exploring the transcriptional landscape of phage-host interactions using novel high-throughput approaches

Putzeys L, Wicke L, Brandão A, Boon M, Pires DP, Azeredo J, Vogel J, Lavigne R, Gerovac M (2024)

Current Opinion in Microbiology 77: 102419DOI: 10.1016/j.mib.2023.102419

A global survey of small RNA interactors identifies KhpA and KhpB as major RNA-binding proteins in Fusobacterium nucleatum

Zhu Y, Ponath F, Cosi V, Vogel J (2024)

Nucleic Acids Research 52 (7): 3950-3970DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkae010

Global Hfq-mediated RNA interactome of nitrogen starved Escherichia coli uncovers a conserved post-transcriptional regulatory axis required for optimal growth recovery

McQuail J, Matera G, Gräfenhan T, Bischler T, Haberkant P, Stein F, Vogel J, Wigneshweraraj S (2024)

Nucleic Acids Research 52 (5): 2323-2339DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkad1211