Initial successes with personalised medicine to fight severe systemic inflammation

World Sepsis Day on 13 September 2026 / Critical care specialists Professor Jan Rossaint and Professor Alexander Zarbock from the University of Münster talk about the latest research being done on sepsis and other types of systemic inflammation / Examples include kidney damage after major surgery and the search for biomarkers that predict risks

Revealed here by microscopy in cell culture, immune cells (neutrophils, pink) cast out web-like nets (red) that trap bacteria (green). Researchers at the University of Münster are studying how infections and other inflammatory stimuli can trigger a life-threatening overactive immune response.
© Uni Münster – Ann-Katrin Wienkamp

Professor Jan Rossaint (left) and Professor Alexander Zarbock (right) head the University of Münster’s Clinical Research Unit “Organ Dysfunction during Systemic Inflammation”, which is funded by the German Research Foundation.
© UKM - Michael Ibrahim

Scientists at the University of Münster are seeing some initial successes with personalised medicine to fight life-threatening systemic inflammations. “Our research has found for instance that the danger of kidney damage from inflammatory responses following major surgery can be reduced if we use new biomarkers to determine a patient’s individual risk,” says critical care doctor Professor Alexander Zarbock to mark World Sepsis Day on 13 September. “We can thus identify those patients at especially high risk of suffering kidney damage and take the necessary precautions to protect them. This approach has great potential to help sepsis patients too,” explains the scientist. “Every patient with a systemic inflammation such as sepsis comes with their own particular circumstances,” stresses critical care specialist Professor Jan Rossaint. “However, only in the last decade has research shown more clearly that this can have a crucial bearing on the way the inflammation develops.” Ultimately, he says, the disease and its symptoms will follow a similar pattern. “But what triggers the inflammation and which organs it affects differ. Furthermore, a patient’s genetic factors, pre-existing conditions or medication they are taking also have an impact. We need personalised treatments.”

According to the Global Burden of Disease Study, sepsis is responsible for nearly a third of all deaths worldwide. Triggered by infection, sepsis is an inflammatory immune system response that spreads throughout the body. Jan Rossaint and Alexander Zarbock head the University of Münster’s Clinical Research Unit “Organ Dysfunction during Systemic Inflammation” (CRU 342); its scientists study why inflammatory processes lead to the failure of vital organs. The risk that the kidneys will be damaged by inflammatory responses after major surgery was reduced by using biomarkers to identify high-risk patients and giving them preventive treatment immediately after their operation. “This includes precisely controlling their circulation and fluid balance, closely monitoring kidney values and ensuring the patient is given no medication that could have a detrimental effect on the kidneys,” says Alexander Zarbock. The goal of the researchers is to have these findings incorporated into international guidelines for the treatment of sepsis and other types of systemic inflammation.

Ongoing research into inflammation risks following cardiac surgery

Sepsis is induced by molecular components of bacteria or viruses that trigger the immune response. However, inflammations that do not involve any infection are equally dangerous. “We see this for example in patients who have severe tissue trauma after road traffic accidents, or following major surgery such as organ transplants, when the blood starts flowing back into the vessels, resulting in inflammatory stimuli,” explains Jan Rossaint. The immune system then reacts to proteins that are released by the injured cells. If a certain immune activation threshold is exceeded, the inflammation can cause potentially fatal damage to organs.

Jan Rossaint and his colleagues are currently investigating which patients face an elevated risk of developing systemic inflammation following heart surgery in particular. The team is looking at values that are routinely checked at the hospital – such as changes in blood counts, typical inflammatory markers and clinical parameters like blood pressure, heart rate and organ function. In addition, the scientists use flow cytometry to analyse hundreds of parameters relating to different types of white blood cells before, during and after surgery, such as cell membrane receptors and cellular messengers. “We search through this data, looking for combinations that can predict how high a patient’s individual risk of suffering complications as a result of inflammatory responses is,” says Jan Rossaint.

“The key factor are the close ties between universities and university hospitals”

According to Jan Rossaint, it is still too early to translate this research into routine clinical applications. “Medical research takes a great deal of time and a great deal of freedom because it’s not a linear process. We have to keep asking new questions and searching for explanations when something doesn’t work. Only once we’ve gained a deeper understanding can we finetune these questions and more precisely determine how best to proceed.” As the scientist emphasises: “Animal experiments are also essential if we want to achieve medical progress because we need to understand the fundamental mechanisms underlying the disease. Tissue models are unable to adequately replicate the processes taking place within the highly complex system that is the human body.”

Jan Rossaint believes the close ties between universities and university hospitals are the key factor that enables this research to lead to clinical applications. “If we discover new correlations in tests with mice, it’s easy to get access to samples from the hospital to quickly check what role they play in the human body and adapt our projects accordingly. In our research with patient groups we analyse data using scientific methods and statistical expertise: this simply wouldn’t be possible without the cooperation between the hospital and the university.”

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Author: Doris Niederhoff
Translation into English: Chris Cave