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Incoming links: Volker Brinkmann
Volker Brinkmann 2026-11-05
Volker Brinkmann is a researcher in cellular microbiology whose 2004 collaborative study described neutrophil extracellular traps. Activated neutrophils released chromatin and antimicrobial proteins into extracellular fibers that bound bacteria. The team combined observations of these structures with measurements of their antimicrobial effects.[ref]
Neutrophil extracellular traps kill bacteria by Volker Brinkmann and others. Abstract; Science 303, 1532–1535, 2004
The observation was striking because it placed nuclear material in an extracellular defensive structure. Neutrophils can engulf microbes by phagocytosis, but a neutrophil extracellular trap acts outside the cell and concentrates antimicrobial components around bound organisms. Distinguishing the location of the material from its effect is essential: seeing extracellular DNA alone would not establish the full binding-and-killing mechanism. The reported experiments concerned specific activation and infection settings, rather than every possible state of a neutrophil.[ref]
Neutrophil extracellular traps kill bacteria by Volker Brinkmann and others. Abstract: chromatin/granule-protein fibers, bacterial binding, virulence-factor degradation and killing