Cellular Biochemistry & Biophysics

The Cellular Biochemistry and Biophysics (CBB) section currently comprises more than 70 PhD students who are associated with several institutes of the Biology and Preclinical Medicine Faculty and the university hospital.

They are involved in various research projects focusing on the understanding of mechanistic principles, which define how cells function. Biological pathways are studied in a wide variety of organisms, including mammals, insects, plants, bacteria and archaea.

Below you will find listed the divisions in which RIGeL students of the CBB department perform their research. Furthermore, a brief overview is given of main research topics.

Cell Biology and Plant Biochemistry: Plant biochemistry and cell biology including the analysis of plant chromatin.

Biophysics I: NMR spectroscopy of large complexes involved in RNA turnover.

Biochemistry I: Functions of eukaryotic small non-coding RNAs.

Genetics: Molecular mechanisms and regulation of cell division in eukaryotes.

Biochemistry II: Enzyme engineering and evolution.

Microbiology: Center for archaea research, mechanisms of archaeal transcription, function and mechanism of archaeal Argonaute, fluorescence-based single-molecule microscopy.

Biochemistry III: RNA synthesis on chromatin templates and maturation of ribonukleoprotein complexes in eukaryotes.

Biophysics II: X-ray crystallographic analyses on the structure and function of membrane proteins.

 

Associated research groups at the university hospital:

Prof. Dr. Susanne Modrow: Molecular virology.

Prof. Dr. Michael Rehli:  Mononuclear phagocyte biology, epigenetics of differentiation.

 

Associated junior research groups:

PD Dr. Markus Kretz: Long non-coding RNAs in tissue homeostasis and disease.

PD Dr. Jan Medenbach: Translational control.