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Molecular Targets and Therapeutics Center

Our goal is to unravel novel biological pathways and molecular mechanisms that control physiological and disease-related cellular processes to identify novel targets and design innovative therapeutic concepts.

Our goal is to unravel novel biological pathways and molecular mechanisms that control physiological and disease-related cellular processes to identify novel targets and design innovative therapeutic concepts.

Our Research Areas

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Cell Death and Immunity

Misdirected signaling processes are triggers and accelerators of most human diseases. Only a profound understanding of all biological details is the prerequisite for the development of innovative and highly effective therapeutic approaches to serious and cost-intensive diseases such as allergies, autoimmune diseases, and cancers.
One process that is particularly crucial for health and disease is cell death. If it is possible to specifically trigger cell death in certain diseased cells (e.g. cancer cells), this opens up the possibility of curing cancer and other diseases.

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Epigenetics and RNA Regulation

Epigenetics investigates which factors determine the activity of individual genes - and thus the development of a cell and also its daughter cells. At the MTTC, the mechanisms underlying transgenerational inheritance due to metabolic or environ-mental influences (e.g. high-fat diet) are studied.
In the area of gene regulation, long non-coding RNAs and RNA-binding proteins are interesting new drug targets. To develop innovative therapeutic concepts, novel approaches combining integrative structural biology with chemical probing are applied to study long non-coding RNAs and large RNA structures as well as protein/RNA interactions in protein-RNA complexes.

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Novel therapeutic concepts

The huge number of incurable diseases and increasingly frequent epi- and pandemic waves of infection require the constant development of totally new highly innovative therapies. This is made possible by the elucidation of molecular mechanisms of cellular metabolic pathways in health and disease. Advanced structural biology, systematic omics approaches and data integration guide target- and structure-based drug development. The portfolio of therapeutic developments ranges from small molecules to protein or RNA therapeutics, genetically modified cells and viruses, including immunomodulators, therapeutic antibodies, innovative vaccines and cell therapies.

MTTC Mission

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Our experts at Molecular Targets and Therapeutics Center

Highlight Publications

2024 Nature Cancer

Orberg ET, Meedt E, Andreas Hiergeist A , Xue J, Heinrich P, Ru J , Ghimire S, Miltiadous O, Lindner S, Tiefgraber M, Göldel S , Eismann T, Schwarz A, Göttert S, Jarosch S, Steiger K, Schulz C , Gigl M, Fischer JC, Janssen K-P, Quante M, Heidegger S, Herhaus P, Verbeek M, Ruland J, van den Brink MRM, Weber D, Edinger M, Wolff D, Busch DH, Kleigrewe K, Herr W, Bassermann F, Gessner A*, Deng L*, Holler E*, Poeck H*

Bacteria and bacteriophage consortia are associated with protective intestinal metabolites in patients receiving stem cell transplantation

2023 Nat Biotechnol.

Kim DK, Weller B, Lin CW, Sheykhkarimli D, Knapp JJ, Dugied G, Zanzoni A, Pons C, Tofaute MJ, Maseko SB, Spirohn K, Laval F, Lambourne L, Kishore N, Rayhan A, Sauer M, Young V, Halder H, la Rosa NM, Pogoutse O, Strobel A, Schwehn P, Li R, Rothballer ST, Altmann M, Cassonnet P, Coté AG, Vergara LE, Hazelwood I, Liu BB, Nguyen M, Pandiarajan R, Dohai B, Coloma PAR, Poirson J, Giuliana P, Willems L, Taipale M, Jacob Y, Hao T, Hill DE, Brun C, Twizere JC, Krappmann D, Heinig M, Falter C, Aloy P, Demeret C, Vidal M, Calderwood MA, Roth FP, Falter-Braun P

A proteome-scale map of the SARS-CoV-2-human contactome

Latest publications of MTTC

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2023 Nature Structural & Molecular Biology

Basu, S. ; Shukron, O. ; Hall, D.W. ; Parutto, P. ; Ponjavic, A. ; Shah, D.I. ; Boucher, W. ; Lando, D. ; Zhang, W. ; Reynolds, N. ; Sober, L.H. ; Jartseva, A. ; Ragheb, R. ; Ma, X. ; Cramard, J. ; Floyd, R. ; Balmer, J. ; Drury, T.A. ; Carr, A.R. ; Needham, L.M. ; Aubert, A. ; Communie, G. ; Gor, K. ; Steindel, M. ; Morey, L. ; Blanco, E. ; Bartke, T. ; di Croce, L. ; Berger, I. ; Schaffitzel, C. ; Lee, S.F. ; Stevens, T.J. ; Klenerman, D. ; Hendrich, B.D. ; Holcman, D. ; Laue, E.D.

Publisher Correction: Live-cell three-dimensional single-molecule tracking reveals modulation of enhancer dynamics by NuRD.

Contact

Director of Operations

Claudia Prothmann

Director of Operations