Ms. Hannah Kleine-Weber started her doctoral thesis at the Infection Biology Unit in autumn 2017 and was accepted in the graduate school Emerging Infectious Diseases (EIDIS). Her research is focussed on host cell interactions of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), an emerging virus, which is highly virulent but poorly transmissible between humans. The viral spike protein (S) mediates MERS-CoV entry into host cells is activated by the cellular protease TMPRSS2. Ms. Kleine-Weber investigates whether the efficiency of S protein activation by TMPRSS2 is predictive of transmissibility and thus pandemic potential of emerging MERS-CoV variants.