Competing interests FB received a speaker fee from BRAHMS. ER receives research support from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and the Aggennix Corporation and has served as one-time consultant for Aggennix Corporation, Eisai Pharmaceuticals, Idaho Technologies and Astra Zeneca. RB has received research support, consulting fees, and honoraria from BRAHMS and from bioMerieux. DA has received consultant fees from BRAHMS, performed PCT assays for the PCT-7 trial, and had access to equipment and assays by BRAHMS as part of NIH-funded studies. KR has received consultant fees from BRAHMS. FMB has received consultant and speaker fees and grant/research support from BRAHMS. JM, RD, JV, GG and PL declare that they have no competing interests. The role of receptor for advanced glycation endproducts (RAGE) in infection  During evolution, multicellular organisms have devel oped an impressive arsenal of defense and repair mechanisms to counteract threats such as infection and trauma. Such an infl ammatory response begins with the detection of the potential life-threatening event by recognizing so-called danger signals. Th ese signal molecules have been classically divided into: i) Exogenous, pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) [1] , which are con served motifs on pathogens that are not found in higher eukaryocytes; and ii) endogenous innate danger mole cules, also named damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) or alarmins, which are structurally diverse proteins rapidly released by the host itself during infec tion or (sterile) tissue damage [2] .