From small molecules to complex organelles

Latest News

July 7, 2023 Cryo-EM structure of the chain-elongating E3 ubiquitin ligase UBR5 Zuzana Hodakova, David Haselbach (IMP) and their collaborators used cryo-electron microscopy to analyse the structure of the enzyme UBR5. Difficult to work on due to its size, UBR5 is important due to its role in marking proteins for degradation. The findings were now published in EMBO Journal. Read more →
June 6, 2023 Aggrephagy at a glance In their Review published in the Journal of Cell Science, Bernd Bauer, Sascha Martens and Luca Ferrari (Max Perutz Labs), present the molecular mechanisms of aggrephagy and discuss aggrephagy pathways in neurons and implications in disease and therapy. Read more →
May 26, 2023 Alwin Köhler named a Moore Distinguished Scholar at Caltech Alwin Köhler, Scientific Director of the Max Perutz Labs and member of our Special Research Program, has been selected by the California Institute of Technology for its prestigious Moore Distinguished Scholar Program. Read more →

About the Program

Targeted Protein Degradation: From small molecules to complex organelles

Our Special Research Program is a collaborative research platform to unravel how proteins are targeted for degradation. We focus on the two major cellular proteolytic pathways, the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) and autophagy, and the crosstalk between them in the cytoplasm and in the nucleus. Furthermore, we investigate how small molecules can be used to chemically reprogram the degradation systems, enabling the targeted proteolysis of selected proteins in a spatially and temporally controlled manner …

Selected Publications

2023 Structural basis of how the BIRC6/SMAC complex regulates apoptosis and autophagy Science Ehrmann JF, Grabarczyk DB, Heinke M, Deszcz L, Kurzbauer R, Hudecz O, Shulkina A, Gogova R, Meinhart A, Versteeg GA, Clausen T Go to publication →
2023 Shuffled ATG8 interacting motifs form an ancestral bridge between UFMylation and C53-mediated autophagy EMBO Journal Picchianti L, Sánchez de Medina Hernández V, Zhan N, Irwin NAT, Stephani M, Hornegger H, Beveridge R, Sawa-Makarska J, Lendl T, Grujic N, Martens S, Richards TA, Clausen T, Ramundo S, Karagöz E, Dagdas Y Go to publication →
2022 Functional E3 ligase hotspots and resistance mechanisms to small-molecule degraders Nature Chemical Biology Hanzl A, Casement R, Imrichova H, Hughes SJ, Barone E, Testa A, Bauer S, Wright J, Brand M, Ciulli A, Winter GE Go to publication →

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