Biochemistry II - Molecular Biochemistry

Lyubo's paper, “P-type ATPase Apt1 of the fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans is a lipid flippase of broad substrate specificity”, published in Journal of Fungi has been selected as the cover story of the issue. Congratulations and special thanks to our master and bachelor students Rebecca, Lilli, and Lasse for their hard work!

Patricia Pipaluk Mia Mathiassen defended her PhD thesis entitled “Giant unilamellar vesicles for studying lipid scramblases using fluorescence microscopy” on 27 August 2021. Congratulations to Patricia from the Molecular Biochemistry team!

Sara Abad Herrera defended her PhD thesis entitled “Expression, reconstitution and functional analysis of P4-ATPases” on 6 July 2021. Congratulations to Sara from the Molecular Biochemistry team!

One reason why nerve damage in the brain cannot regenerate easily is that the neurites do not know in which direction they should grow. A team of researchers from Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB), Sorbonne University Paris, and the Technische Universität Braunschweig is now working on showing them the direction using magnetic nanoparticles. The team led by Professor Rolf Heumann, Senior Researcher for Molecular Neurobiochemistry at RUB, is hoping that this will allow the effects of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s to be alleviated over the long term. The results of the work were published on 31 December 2020 in the journal Scientific Reports. Press Release.

A team around PD Dr. Thor­sten Mül­ler and Prof. Dr. Ste­fa­nie Pfän­der wants to use organoids from stem cells to investigate the course of the infection with the virus and possible remedies. The project is supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research from 1 June 2020 for one and a half years. Press Release (in German).

Marta Grifell Junyent defended her PhD thesis entitled “Tracking down the role of lipid flippases in primary skeletal muscle myogenesis” on 28 February 2020. Congratulations to Sara from the Molecular Biochemistry team!

At this year's “FoRUM” conference of the Medical Faculty of the RUB, David Marks (image, right) has been awarded for his poster entitled „Subcellular localization of FE65 by an in-frame CRISPR ‚fluorescence‘ knock-in approach“. David is currently working on his master thesis in the group of Dr. Thorsten Müller (image, left) and reports in the awarded poster the feasibility to fuse fluorescent proteins to endogenous proteins of interest. Perspectively, the method is intended to be applied to stem cells that afterwards will be used to differentiate cerebral organoids.

Crispr technology has greatly facilitated gene editing. Associate Professor Thorsten Müller from the Department of Biochemistry II, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, and Dr. Hassan Bukhari from Harvard Medical School discuss its pros and cons in a review article in the journal Trends in Cell Biology from 12 September 2019. Press Release. Abstract.

The causes of Alzheimer's disease are for the most part obscure. Researchers intend to expose them using cerebral organoids grown from stem cells.

In the science magazine Rubin of the Ruhr University you can find an article on this topic, which is investigated by the Cell Signalling Group at the Department of Biochemistry II.

In collaboration with Stephen H. Leppla of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dennis Paliga, Fabian Raudzus, Rolf Heumann, and Sebastian Neumann delivered the transcription factor Nurr1 as a protein in dopaminergic cells using a bacterial toxin. In this way they were able to protect the cells from the toxic effects of 6-hydroxydopamine. This cell-permeable Nurr1 protein could be a new approach for the development of a new therapy for treatment of Parkinson's disease. The study has been published in the journal Molecular Neurobiology. Press Release. Abstract. The complete article is openly accessible.

Prof. Dr. Tho­mas Gün­ther-Po­mor­ski, Prof. Dr. Irm­gard Diet­zel-Meyer, De­nis Tha­ten­horst and An­ni­ka Haak won a prize in the eLearning competition 5x5000 for the pro­ject »Video sequences for lectures and courses in Biochemistry«.

We congratulate Hassan Bukhari on achieving his doctorate degree.

The research group Cell Signalling has moved to the Department of Biochemistry II - Molecular Biochemistry in the summer term 2017. The group studies signalling pathways that are of central importance in the development of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. The main focus lies on the amyloid precursor protein (APP) and its signalling to the nucleus.