The research themes of the section cover structural and functional studies of receptors and proteins involved in intracellular signalling, and projects on the biophysical description of protein aggregate formation. Strong emphasis is thereby put on a structural characterization of membrane-integrated receptors, channels and fibril-forming systems, in combination with exploring the potential of solid-state magic angle spinning NMR for studying such systems. As a special theme with regard to intracellular signalling, non-catalytical protein domains that mediate interactions with linear peptide segments in target proteins are analyzed with respect to specificity and affinitydetermining sequence features. A growing part of the research is the systematic derivation of small organic compounds as modulators of protein-protein interactions and amyloid formation. There are strong links to the screening facility of the FMP through the molecular modellling and NMR aspects of small-molecule inhibitor development.

The department hosts expertise in the areas of structural bioinformatics, molecular biology, solution and solid-state NMR spectroscopy, and molecular modelling. NMR spectroscopy is used as the major tool for determining structures of biological macromolecules in solution, and of quasi-solid preparations which are difficult to crystallize, like amyloid fibrils and membrane proteins in nativelike lipids. It is particularly well suited for studying the dynamics of protein structures and interactions with very weakly binding ligands.

The various skills are contained in currently six research groups, Protein Engineering (Christian Freund), Molecular Modelling (Ronald Kühne), Structural Bioinformatics (Gerd Krause), Protein Structure (Hartmut Oschkinat), Solid State NMR (Bernd Reif), Solution NMR (Peter Schmieder) and in-vivo NMR (Philipp Selenko). The instrumentation includes a variety of solution and solid-state NMR spectrometers ranging from 400 to 900 MHz, and equipment for analytical ultracentrifugation and isothermal calorimetry. In the past two years, the direction of research has been shifted stronger towards solid-state NMR and its applications, resulting in the installation of a new group focused on solid-state NMR and amyloid-forming systems. Furthermore, a 700 MHz wide bore NMR spectrometer was purchased.