Christa Bücker’s project will focus on enhancers - short genomic elements that control precise gene expression from a distance. When and how these enhancers are activated and how multiple enhancer elements work together, remains a mystery the Bücker lab will try to solve. “We have identified a cluster of enhancers that controls the expression of the Fgf5 gene during early embryonic development. With the stand-alone grant, we will determine when and how single elements are activated, how one enhancer element might affect the activity of the neighboring elements and, ultimately, how all of them together lead to the correct spatio-temporal expression of Fgf5”, says Christa Bücker.
Alexander Dammermann will work on identifying novel ciliogenesis factors. Cilia are cellular projections which perform important sensory and motile functions in eukaryotic cells. Defects in cilia function are associated with a range of developmental and adult disorders collectively termed ciliopathies. “In this project, we are using a combination of bioinformatics and reverse genetics in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster and the nematode worm C. elegans to identify and characterize novel players involved in the assembly of this clinically important organelle”, says Alexander Dammermann.
Bojan Zagrovic’s project concerns the computational investigation of interactions between unstructured RNA and protein molecules. “The project is based on our recent identification of a robust physico-chemical complementarity between mRNAs and the proteins they encode at the level of primary sequence composition. In the project, we will attempt to connect this basic finding with a wider context of cellular interaction networks”, says Bojan Zagrovic.
Dissecting the turgor sensing mechanisms in the blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae
Pikobodies: What does it take to bioengineer NLR immune receptor-nanobody fusions
scRNA and phylogenetics
Gene regulatory mechanisms governing human development, evolution and variation
Regulation of Cerebral Cortex Morphogenesis by Migrating Cells
Phage therapy for treating bacterial infections: a double-edged sword
Suckers and segments of the octopus arm
Using the house mouse radiation to study the rapid evolution of genes and genetic processes
CRISPR jumps ahead: mechanistic insights into CRISPR-associated transposons
SLiMs and SHelMs: Decoding how short linear and helical motifs direct PPP specificity to direct signaling
Title to be announced
Enigmatic evolutionary origin and multipotency of the neural crest cells - major drivers of vertebrate evolution
Visualising mitotic chromosomes and nuclear dynamics by correlative light and electron microscopy
Engineered nanocarriers for imaging of small proteins by CryoEM
Bacterial cell envelope homeostasis at the (post)transcriptional level
Title to be announced
Hydrologic extremes alter mechanisms and pathways of carbon export from mountainous floodplain soils
Dissecting post-transcriptional gene expression regulation in humans and viruses
Polyploidy and rediploidisation in stressful times
Prdm9 control of meiotic synapsis of homologs in intersubspecific hybrids
Title to be announced
RNA virus from museum specimens
Programmed DNA double-strand breaks during meiosis: Mechanism and evolution
Title to be announced