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- 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 (GMI) 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 In this year’s Life Science call in Chemical Biology, the WWTF funds eight research teams in Chemical Biology. Three of them are part of our SFB in Targeted Protein Degradation and each have one Co-Principal Investigator who is also a member of our SFB! 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 →