News • Targeted Protein Degradation

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May 2, 2025 TRIM52 maintains cellular fitness and is under tight proteolytic control by multiple giant E3 ligases The E3 ubiquitin ligase TRIM52 is one of the most unstable proteins in the human proteome. Curiously, however, despite having been lost in most mammals, TRIM52 has been retained in humans and old-world primates. In work recently published in Nature Communications, members from the Versteeg lab (Max Perutz Lab) and collaborators reveal that TRIM52 confers a fitness advantage to cells by helping to resolve topoisomerase 2 DNA lesions. Read more →
March 14, 2025 Georg Winter appointed as Life Science Director of AITHYRA Georg Winter will take over the life science directorship of AITHYRA, the Research Institute for Biomedical Artificial Intelligence of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. His work in targeted protein degradation is not only advancing fundamental research but also paving the way for practical applications. Read more →
March 11, 2025 Welcome Angelina Gross as Associate Member in our SFB network Angelina Gross, previously postdoc in the lab of Yasin Dagdas at the GMI, will join the BOKU University in Vienna as a Principal Investigator. We are pleased to welcome Angelina as an Associate Group Leader in our SFB network. Read more →
March 3, 2025 Open PhD Student positions – Vienna BioCenter PhD Program The Vienna BioCenter PhD Program has opened its Spring Call 2025 now. The labs of Alwin Köhler (Max Perutz Labs) and David Haselbach (IMP) are among the groups recruiting new PhD students. Application deadline: 11 April 2025. Read more →
February 7, 2025 Balancing the pressure: How plant cells protect their vacuoles Water-filled vacuoles provide the inner pressure plant cells need for structural support. However, damage to the plant’s cell wall risks vacuole rupture and cell death. The Dagdas group at the GMI discovered a novel quality control mechanism that protects the vacuole’s integrity upon cell wall damage. Read more →
February 6, 2025 Master’s Thesis Opportunity in Parkinson’s Research The Martens Lab at the Max Perutz Labs is offering a Master's position to study how Parkinson's disease aggregates affect the human brain. We provide state-of-the art facilities and a collaborative, international environment. We are curiosity-driven researchers who are not limited to specific techniques... Read more →
January 28, 2025 Elif Karagöz promoted to tenured professor Elif Karagöz has been a group leader at the Max Perutz Labs since 2019, where she studies the mechanisms of protein quality control in cells. Now she has been promoted to tenured professor. Read more →
January 7, 2025 WWTF Grant for Tim Clausen Tim Clausen (IMP) has secured funding from the Vienna Science & Technology Fund WWTF in the frame of their Life Sciences Call 2024. As coordinator of the project "Sounds of Silence – codons and chaperons in the protein folding concert" he teams up with the labs of Johannes Zuber (IMP) and Alex Bronstein (ISTA) to study how myosin, the protein responsible for muscle contraction, matures within cells. Read more →
December 23, 2024 Autophagy unveiled: The Dagdas Group is shining a light on cellular recycling The group of Yasin Dagdas at the GMI studies how selective autophagy detects and removes damaged or unwanted cellular structures. In 2024, the Dagdas group published four preprints describing essential features of selective autophagy. Read more →
December 4, 2024 Seipin: Guardian of Lipid Balance The inner nuclear membrane, a hub of genome regulation and nuclear envelope organization, holds untapped mysteries in lipid metabolism. In a study published in Nature Communications, the Köhler lab (Max Perutz Labs) identified Seipin – a protein previously linked to a severe lipid storage disorder – as a key regulator of inner nuclear membrane lipid homeostasis and nuclear envelope integrity. Read more →
December 4, 2024 Ubiquitin & Friends Symposium 2025 – Registration Open Save the date for the 11th Ubiquitin & Friends Symposium in Vienna: 8-9 May 2025. Registration is open now! Read more →
December 3, 2024 ERC Consolidator Grant propels Georg Winter’s groundbreaking work Tailored small molecules that bind to cancer-causing proteins and neutralize tumor cells—this is the specialty of Georg Winter, Principal Investigator at CeMM, who has established himself as a global leader in the field. His latest ERC CoG project proposal, GE|NEomorph, will take his research to a new level. Read more →
November 19, 2024 ASAP: More funding for Parkinson’s research for the Martens lab The Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s Initiative (ASAP) fosters collaborative research to accelerate Parkinson’s disease discoveries. Since 2020, the Martens lab (Max Perutz Labs) has been part of the ASAP-funded Team Hurley, also known as the ‘mito911’ team. ASAP has extended the mito911 team grant by two years. Read more →
November 14, 2024 Postdoc position in the Clausen lab (IMP) – Age-related protein disorders The Allen Frontiers Group funds a postdoctoral position in the Clausen lab at the IMP to study the impact of disease mutations on protein lifespan. Read more →
October 25, 2024 Time for lunch During a process called aggrephagy, aggregated proteins are marked with ubiquitin and clustered into molecular condensates, which are then degraded with the help of the autophagic machinery. Now published in EMBO Journal, the Martens group from Max Perutz Labs reveals how the cargo receptor protein TAX1BP1 facilitates the switch from cargo collection to autophagosome formation. Read more →
October 24, 2024 Controlling condensation by phosphorylation Condensate formation as an organizing principle is rapidly gaining traction in many biological processes. However, the mechanisms by which the size, composition and subcellular localization of these condensates are regulated are largely unknown. The Karagöz lab (Max Perutz Labs) has revealed that phosphorylation of the RNA-binding protein IGF2BP1 impacts the biogenesis, size and number of stress granules. Read more →
October 4, 2024 FWF Cluster of Excellence Grant awarded to consortium with participation from Noelia Urbán The Austrian Science Fund (FWF) has awarded a Cluster of Excellence Grant to “Neuronal Circuits in Health and Disease”, an interdisciplinary project co-coordinated by Noelia Urbán at IMBA. Read more →
September 25, 2024 Science Outreach: Our lab course for high school classes Previously, the Bachmair lab from our Special Research Program in collaboration with the Vienna Open Lab designed a lab course for high school pupils on the topic of targeted protein degradation. Due to overwhelming demands, another round of courses is being offered in the last week of November 2024 for over 200 pupils. And again: it is fully booked! Read more →
September 11, 2024 Open PhD student positions – Vienna BioCenter PhD Program The Vienna BioCenter PhD Program in Molecular Biosciences has opened its Autumn Call now. Among the groups recruiting new PhD students are the labs of Alwin Köhler (Max Perutz Labs) and David Haselbach (IMP). Read more →
September 9, 2024 Alwin Köhler appointed as scientific director of the Max Perutz Labs Alwin Köhler has been appointed as scientific director of the Max Perutz Labs for an additional four-year term. Since starting in 2020, he has successfully led the institute through a period of significant transformation. His second four-year term will begin on October 1, 2024. Read more →
September 4, 2024 Disordered regions in the IRE1α ER lumenal domain mediate its stress-induced clustering During protein folding stress, the transmembrane protein IRE1 detects misfolded proteins in the ER and initiates a transcriptional relay as part of the unfolded protein response. In order to signal the presence of unfolded proteins in the ER, IRE1 oligomerizes, but the molecular mechanisms behind this process remain unknown. Work by the lab of Elif Karagöz (Max Perutz Labs), now published in EMBO Journal, reveals that disordered regions in IRE1’s ER luminal domain regulate its self-assembly. Read more →
July 1, 2024 New Adapter Molecule Expands Therapeutic Potential Around the Cell’s Waste Disposal System Disease-causing proteins can be removed from the cell through targeted protein degradation. For this, the protein must be connected to one of the approximately 600 endogenous so-called ubiquitin ligases. So far, clinical success has only been achieved with two of these ligases. A team of researchers at CeMM, led by Georg Winter, has now discovered an adapter for a new ligase, potentially significantly expanding the range of medical applications. The study was published in Nature Communications. Read more →
June 25, 2024 Damage Control: Targeting Mitochondria Deficiency in mitophagy is a hallmark of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s. The molecular mechanisms that govern mitochondrial degradation, however, are not well understood. In their new publication in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, Elias Adriaenssens from the Martens lab (Max Perutz Labs) and colleagues show that the TBK1 kinase adaptors NAP1 and SINTBAD play crucial roles during mitochondrial degradation by controlling pathway initiation and driving its efficient progression. Read more →
June 25, 2024 Predoc student (Dagdas Lab and Proteomics Technology Hub) Open position for a highly motivated Predoc student (1 year, with the option to extend) at the intersection of single cell proteomic method development and autophagy research. Read more →
June 22, 2024 Inspired by Nature: Synthetic Nightshade Molecule Effective Against Leukemia Cells Nightshade plants produce a diverse array of compounds with therapeutic potential. Researchers led by Georg Winter at CeMM have now identified an artificial variant inspired by the Withanolides group that acts highly specifically against leukemia cells. The team not only confirmed its effectiveness but also elucidated its mechanism of action: the molecule disrupts the cholesterol metabolism of tumor cells. Read more →
June 14, 2024 Unrecyclable: how protein aggregates evade clearance Protein aggregates are linked to many diseases, including Alzheimer's disease, where they accumulate despite dedicated cellular mechanisms to degrade such aggregates. A study led by Luca Ferrari from the Martens lab (Max Perutz Labs), now published in "Science Advances", shows that Tau fibrils, a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease, evade clearance by preventing the binding of a crucial mediator, TAX1BP1, which helps to recruit the autophagy machinery. Read more →
April 26, 2024 A shortcut for drug discovery A team led by Georg Winter at CeMM has leveraged a method to measure the binding activity of hundreds of small molecules against thousands of human proteins. Powered by machine learning and AI, it allows unbiased predictions of how small molecules interact with all proteins present in living human cells. These groundbreaking results have been published in the journal Science. Read more →
April 13, 2024 Postdoc Position in Re-programming Autophagy in the Martens lab in collaboration with the Winter lab A postdoc position is available in the lab of Sascha Martens at the Max Perutz Labs, Vienna BioCenter, in collaboration with the lab of Georg Winter at CeMM. Read more →
April 11, 2024 ERC Advanced Grant for Tim Clausen to study protein folding in muscle Tim Clausen, IMP Senior Group Leader and member of our Special Research Program, has been awarded an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) to investigate how protein misfolding leads to disease by focusing on hypertrophic cardiomyopathies (HCM), a common inherited cardiac condition characterised by thickened heart walls and early death. Read more →
April 2, 2024 Master’s Thesis in cryo electron microscopy There is an opportunity for a Master’s thesis in the lab of David Haselbach in the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP). The lab is studying the dynamics of macromolecular machines using single particle cryo EM. Read more →
March 4, 2024 Open PhD positions in labs of our Special Research Program Seven group leaders within the Special Resesarch Program (SFB) in Targeted Protein Degradation are recruiting PhD students as part of the Vienna BioCenter PhD Program, which has now opened the Spring Call 2024. Read more →
February 22, 2024 New System Triggers Cellular Waste Disposal Research teams led by Georg Winter (CeMM Group Leader and member of our SFB) and Alessio Ciulli (University of Dundee) have found a new system that triggers cellular waste disposal. Published in the journal Nature, their groundbreaking findings shed light on the mechanisms and the therapeutic opportunities of this system. Read more →
January 27, 2024 Postdoc position in the lab of Ilaria Piazza A postdoc position for a Proteomics Scientist is available in the lab of Ilaria Piazza (MDC, Berlin) as part of our collaborative Special Research Program (SFB). The successful candidate will play a key role in a ground-breaking project aimed at developing a new structural proteomics method to characterize candidate molecular glues and their protein-protein interactions binding interfaces. Read more →
January 26, 2024 Postdoc position in the lab of Andreas Bachmair A postdoc position is available in the lab of Andreas Bachmair (Max Perutz Labs, University of Vienna) as part of our collaborative Special Research Program (SFB) to investigate pathways for recognition of amino-terminal degradation signals in plants. Read more →
January 11, 2024 Ubiquitin & Friends Symposium 2024 – Registration Open Save the date for the 10th Ubiquitin & Friends Symposium in Vienna: 2-3 May 2024. Registration is open now! Read more →
December 7, 2023 Extended funding for the Special Research Program in Targeted Protein Degradation The Special Research Program (SFB) in ‘Targeted Protein Degradation’ has been approved for a second funding period by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). Read more →
December 5, 2023 Science Outreach: A practical course for high school classes Our Special Research Program (SFB) has established a lab course for high school pupils on the topic of targeted protein degradation in collaboration with the Vienna Open Lab. The course “Trash or Treasure? Protein Recycling in the Cell” has encountered enormous interest with overbooked course slots. Further courses are planned for 2024. Read more →
September 11, 2023 SPOP targets the immune transcription factor IRF1 for proteasomal degradation In work recently published in eLife, the Versteeg lab (Max Perutz Labs) has identified a factor essential for the degradation of the transcription factor IRF1, a key driver of the innate immune response. Read more →
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 →
April 20, 2023 HUWE1 controls tristetraprolin proteasomal degradation by regulating its phosphorylation Tristetraprolin (TTP) is a critical player in the resolution of the inflammatory response. How TTP itself is regulated, however, is poorly understood. Work led by the lab of Gijs Versteeg (Max Perutz Labs), now published in eLife, gives insight into how this critical immune regulator is kept in check. Read more →
April 3, 2023 The ÖAW has elected Yasin Dagdas to its Young Academy Yasin Dagdas, group leader at the GMI and member of our Special Research Program, has been elected as a new member to the Young Academy of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW). Read more →
February 10, 2023 Shuffled ATG8 interacting motifs form an ancestral bridge between UFMylation and autophagy Researchers led by Yasin Dagdas (GMI) and Elif Karagöz (Max Perutz Labs) uncover a molecular switch that regulates autophagy in plants. Combining evolutionary analysis with a mechanistic experimental approach, they demonstrate that this regulatory mechanism is conserved in eukaryotes. The findings are now published in the EMBO Journal. Read more →
February 9, 2023 Structural basis for regulation of apoptosis and autophagy by the BIRC6/SMAC complex The enormous protein BIRC6 plays an important role in preventing programmed cell death. Scientists from the lab of Tim Clausen at the IMP now showed that BIRC6’s structure holds the key for regulating cell death, but also for cell survival pathways. Their findings are published in the journal Science. Read more →
December 16, 2022 Tim Clausen among Allen Distinguished Investigators 2022 A collaboration between Tim Clausen, Senior Scientist at the IMP and member of our Special Research Program, together with Janine Kirstein at the University of Bremen, was selected for the Allen Distinguished Investigators Program 2022. Read more →
December 2, 2022 Ubiquitin & Friends Symposium 2023 Save the date for the 9th Ubiquitin & Friends Symposium: 27-28 April 2023. Registration is open now! Read more →
November 18, 2022 Blocking DNA production in cancer therapy by targeting POLΘ In a recent study, researchers from Joanna Loizou’s group from CeMM and the Medical University of Vienna investigated the POLΘ enzyme and the role it plays in DNA repair. Inhibiting POLΘ represents a new approach for developing specific therapies, in particular for patients with BRCA1 mutations. The study has been published in Cell Reports. Read more →
November 7, 2022 Preventing resistance in cancer therapy The latest developmental drugs, particularly for the use in oncology, rely on the targeted degradation of harmful pathogenic proteins. In a recent study, researchers in the lab of Georg Winter at CeMM and their collaborators identify potential resistance mechanisms and provide insights on how to overcome them. Their study has been published in Nature Chemical Biology. Read more →
October 21, 2022 Plant autophagosomes mature into amphisomes prior to their delivery to the central vacuole Researchers in the lab of Yasin Dagdas at the GMI and their collaborators reveal a “hub and spoke” distribution model used by plant cells to regulate autophagic flux and thus efficiently coordinate cellular recycling. Their work has been published in the Journal of Cell Biology. Read more →
June 23, 2022 BacPROTACs mediate targeted protein degradation in bacteria Scientists in the lab of Tim Clausen at the IMP and their international collaborators present an innovative and broadly applicable strategy pointing to an entirely new type of antibiotics: bacterial proteolysis targeting chimeras, or BacPROTACs. Their study has been published in the journal Cell. Read more →
May 4, 2022 The ÖAW elected Alwin Köhler as corresponding member and Georg Winter into its Young Academy Two members of our Special Research Program, Alwin Köhler (Max Perutz Labs) and Georg Winter (CeMM), have been elected as members to the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW): Alwin Köhler as a corresponding member, and Georg Winter as new member to the Young Academy. Read more →
March 18, 2022 ERC Consolidator Grant awarded to Yasin Dagdas The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded a Consolidator Grant to Yasin Dagdas, group leader at the GMI and member of our Special Research Program, to investigate the role of autophagy in the rescue of stalled ribosome. Read more →
February 4, 2022 “Hoping that we can soon forget about Alzheimer’s disease”-“Auf dass wir Alzheimer bald vergessen können” A kind of "waste collection" keeps our cells clean. If something goes wrong, diseases like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's can be the result. Molecular biologist Sascha Martens and his team investigate the associated process, called autophagy. Read more →
December 22, 2021 The WWTF funds three teams of our SFB in Targeted Protein Degradation This year’s Life Sciences Call of the WWTF was focused on Chemical Biology. Among the eight grants awarded in total, three go to teams lead and co-lead by members of our SFB consortium: Congratulation to Yasin Dagdas (together with Elif Karagöz), Georg Winter (together with Sascha Martens) and Tim Clausen (together with Noelia Urban)! Read more →
December 21, 2021 Ubiquitin and Friends Symposium – Register NOW Register now for the Ubiquitin and Friends Symposium 2022 Read more →
September 1, 2021 Reconstitution defines the roles of p62, NBR1 and TAX1BP1 in ubiquitin condensate formation and autophagy initiation The group of Sascha Martens at the University of Vienna have described the roles of three human cargo receptors in the selective autophagy of ubiquitin condensates. Their findings have now been published in Nature Communications. Read more →
June 18, 2021 ÖAW DOC Fellowship for Aleksandra Anisimova The Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) has awarded four DOC fellowships to Max Perutz Labs PhD students. Among these is Aleksandra Anisimova, a PhD student from Elif Karagöz's lab. Read more →
June 16, 2021 Mannagetta Prize for Medicine to Joanna Loizou Austrian Academy of Sciences awards Mannagetta Prize for Medicine to Joanna Loizou Read more →
June 9, 2021 Alwin Köhler elected EMBO Member The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) honours distinguished scientists every year, who have made exceptional contributions in life sciences. Among this year’s new elected members is Alwin Köhler, who is part of our FWF funded SFB in Targeted Protein Degradation. Read more →
March 10, 2021 Cellular Control of Protein Turnover via the Modification of the Amino Terminus The group of Andreas Bachmair at the University of Vienna published their findings in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences. Read more →
February 10, 2021 Definition of the NEDD8 Proteome in Homeostatic and Proteotoxic Stress conditions reveals a role for hybrid NEDD8-SUMO-2 chains in nuclear Protein Quality Control Scientists from Dimitris Xirodimas (CRBM, University of Montpellier) and Petra Belis Lab (Institute of Molecular Biology- IMB, Mainz) have discovered distinct proteomes for canonical and atypical NEDDylation by proteome-wide identification of NEDD8 modification sites. The study is published in Cell Reports. Read more →
September 4, 2020 Autophagy: the beginning of the end Scientists led by Sascha Martens from the Max Perutz Labs, a joint venture of the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna, have now reconstructed the first steps in the formation of autophagosomes. They show that tiny vesicles loaded with the protein Atg9 act as the seed from which the autophagosome emerges. The study is published in Science. Read more →
August 31, 2020 An ancient bridge between autophagy and quality control at the endoplasmic reticulum New work published in eLife, from an international team led by the Dagdas lab at the Gregor Mendel Institute, has identified an evolutionary conserved protein that mediates recycling of the endoplasmic reticulum. Read more →
August 4, 2020 Drug discovery: First rational strategy to find molecular degraders The group of Georg Winter at CeMM and his collaborators have described a strategy that, for the first time, enables the rational and highly scalable discovery of novel molecular glue degraders. Their findings have now been published in Nature Chemical Biology. Read more →
July 8, 2020 Sascha Martens elected EMBO Member The EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organization) membership honours distinguished scientists who have made outstanding contributions in the life sciences. Sascha Martens is among this year's newly elected members. Read more →
June 19, 2020 Tenure-Track Professorship in the field of Cellular Quality Control The Centre for Molecular Biology of the University of Vienna (Max Perutz Labs) is seeking an outstanding scientist to establish an internationally competitive research group in “Cellular Quality Control”. Research areas of particular interest include, but are not exclusive to, the quality control and repair of macromolecules, organelle homeostasis, ubiquitin signaling, autophagy, the targeted degradation of proteins and other macromolecules... Read more →
June 10, 2020 Four outstanding scientists have joined our Scientific Advisory Board We are honored and proud to announce that four outstanding scientists - Judith Frydman (Stanford University), Ramanujan Hegde (MRC-LMB), Noboru Mizushima (University of Tokyo) and Hidde Ploegh (Harvard Medical School) - have accepted our invitation to serve on our Scientific Advisory Board. Read more →
June 3, 2020 CeMM study reveals how a master regulator of gene transcription operates Using targeted protein degradation technology, researchers at CeMM, the Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, set out to understand the primary role of a key regulator of transcription, the human Mediator complex. Read more →
May 22, 2020 “Reverse engineering” autophagosome biogenesis reveals new protein interactions Scientists from Sascha Martens Lab at the Max Perutz Labs Vienna and their colleagues from the University of Berkeley (USA) have reconstituted the activity of key proteins involved in the growth of autophagosome precursors... Read more →
April 20, 2020 Ubiquitin & Friends Symposium 2020, 14-15 May Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s Ubiquitin & Friends Symposium will take place virtually via Zoom on 14th and 15th of May 2020, with an exciting program and a stellar line-up of invited speakers. Registration is open until 5 May 2020. Read more →
March 12, 2020 Layered Liquids – reaction chambers for gene regulation A marvel of complexity, the nucleus is the command center of the cell – harboring information, codes and controlled access. But different from man-made command centers, the nuclear interior looks chaotic to the eye of a scientist… Read more →
December 5, 2019 Funding for a Special Research Program in Targeted Protein Degradation The Austrian Science Fund has awarded one of the prestigious Special Research Program (SFB) grants to a consortium of scientists in Vienna and Mainz to unravel mechanisms of targeted protein degradation. Read more →