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Membrane Biophysics

Annoucement

We would like to invite you to the 4th International Symposium on Microbial Lipids which will also feature "Biomembranes and Membrane-associated processes", with a special focus on the roles of membrane proteins and enzymes. It is scheduled to take place from February 11 to 14, 2024 in Graz.

We encourage especially Master’s students, PhD candidates and Post-Doctoral fellows to participate and submit abstracts for posters or oral presentations until January 10, 2024.

Here, you can find the link for your abstract submissionDiscounted registration fees are available until January 12, 2024, please register here.
Please visit the Website for further details.

We look forward to your participation.

Membrane proteins represent about one third of all cellular proteins. They play key roles in the exchange of information and the transport of substances between and within cells. Due to their diverse tasks and the possibility of manipulating them from outside the cell, they are attractive targets for drug discovery.

Because of their hydrophobic properties, membrane proteins are difficult to study. They are most stable and perform their physiological functions best when embedded in a lipid bilayer. Traditionally, detergents are used to first extract proteins from cellular membranes and then reincorporate them into artificial, well-defined membranes. Unfortunately, this procedure often destroys the structure and functionality of the target protein.

Our vision is to extract membrane proteins directly from cellular membranes into native nanodiscs without using conventional detergents. Thus, the proteins remain in a lipid bilayer, which allows biophysical and structural studies under well-defined, yet native-like, conditions.

We pursue three main objectives:

  • design and functionalization of new compounds using organic synthetic chemistry to produce nanodiscs with improved properties;
  • development and application of biophysical methods to study the properties of proteins and lipids in nanodiscs;
  • application of nanodiscs to answer biomolecular questions, such as exploring protein interaction networks and investigating drug targets.

More information about our research can be found here.

Univ.-Prof. Dr.

Sandro Keller

Institute of Molecular Biosciences (IMB)
Humboldtstr. 50/III
8010 Graz, Austria

Phone:+43 316 380 - +43 316 380 - 4987

Do you want to be part of our team?

We are happy to welcome interested Bachelor and Master students!

sandro.keller(at)uni-graz.at

Sandro receives the prestigious Breast Cancer Research Award of the Austrian Cancer Aid for his and Lena's research on HER2.

Congratulations! More info about the project and the award.

FULL-MDS: Fluorescent Universal Lipid Labeling for Microfluidic Diffusional Sizing. Anal Chem 2023

Electroneutral polymer nanodiscs enable interference-free probing of membrane proteins in a lipid-bilayer environment. Small 2022

A bioinspired glycopolymer for capturing membrane proteins in native-like lipid-bilayer nanodiscs. Nanoscale 2022

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