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The Institute of Virology at the Philipps-University of Marburg (UMR) is an academic research center focused on RG4 viruses and the National Reference Center for Filoviruses.
Founded in 1527, the Philipps-Universität Marburg is a traditional German university that homes today more than 20.000 students. Infection biology is a scientific focus of the Philipps-University. The Institute of Virology is responsible for the routine virus diagnostics of the Marburg University Hospital, for diagnostics of imported tropical diseases and for the investigation of suspected bioterror samples as international reference laboratory for Filoviruses. Moreover, the seven research groups of the Institute of Virology investigate replication and pathogenesis of highly pathogenic viruses.

The Institute of Virology has a long tradition in research with highly pathogenic viruses that goes back to the initial outbreak of Marburg virus in 1967. Since then, the Institute focused its research on filoviruses and other viruses causing hemorrhagic fevers like arenaviruses and Nipahvirus. During the SARS outbreak in 2003 the Institute of Virology was involved in the outbreak investigations and contributed to the identification and characterization of the new coronavirus. The development of surrogate systems as iVLP and recombinant VSV at the Institute of Virology allowed and accelerated the research on the highly pathogenic viruses under BSL1-2 conditions.

In the modern BSL-4 laboratory of the Philipps-University, recombinant viruses are generated and analyzed to understand all virus replication steps. The BSL-4 laboratory of the Philipps-University Marburg is a partner of the emerging-infection unit in the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF). The research field "Emerging Infections" aim to accelerate biomedical research on emerging viruses and to be prepared for infectious diseases in the future