Our team investigates macromolecular protein machines by high-resolution Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) underlying essential cellular functions, e.g. protein quality control and DNA-repair processes.
We aim to elucidate their respective function at the atomic level in order to understand their dysfunction underlying several neurodegenerative diseases and cancer-types.
We studythese large molecular protein complexes (~500–800 kDa) by sophisticated NMR-methods, to be able to derive structural and dynamical adaptions of these complexes at the atomic level in solution. These NMR-studies are complemented and combined with additional information from other structural biology and biophysical methods.
These integrated structural biology approaches are used to understand the possible allosteric mechanism of these proteins and their respective complexes underlying their functionality. This knowledge will be used to understand the effect of disease-related mutations and for the subsequent design of either antibiotics or drugs.
Currewntly the main focus of our research is on the one hand questions related to protein quality control and transcription coupled repair in both bacterial and eukaryotic systems. On the other hand we drive technological advances to use integrated strucutral biology approaches revealing deeper strucutral and mechanistical insight as well as develop novel approaches for high-resolution studies directly in the biological context employing new in situ and in cellulo approaches.
Group Members:
Björn Burmann, PI
Johannes Thoma, Independent Researcher
Irena Burmann, Senior Researcher
Charles Burridge, Post-Doc
Jens Lidman, Post-Doc
Hannah Fremlén, PhD student
Filippo Castegnaro, PhD-studenf