Lab News!
Selected Talks and Presentations by Group Members
2024
Oct 2024 - Cellular Sensors Workshop. Universidad de Andalucia, Baeza, Spain (Speakers from the lab: Charlotte Guhl, UH)
Oct 2024 - New Horizons in Membrane Biology Symposium, Frankfurt
(Speakers from the lab: Yasmine Damayanti, UH)
Sep 2024 - Murnau Structural Biology Meeting (Speaker from the lab: Yasmine Damayanti)
Jul 2024 - Summer Symposium of the Junior GBM, Jena (Speaker from the Lab: Jean-Martin Harder)
Jul 2024 - Gordon Research Seminar 'Thiol-Based Redox Regulation and Signaling', Barcelona, Spain (Speaker from the lab: Marta Bogacz)
Jul 2024 - Gordon Research Conference 'Drug Metabolism', Holderness, NH, USA
(Speaker from the lab: UH)
Jun 2024 - EuroBiofilms, Copenhagen, DK (Speaker from the lab (Microplastic subgroup): Kerstin Thriene)
Apr 2024 - GBM Transporter Colloquium, Rauischholzhausen (Speaker from the lab: Victor Hugo Pérez Carrillo)
Mar 2024 - Gordon Research Conference 'Ligand Recognition and Molecular Gating', Ventura, CA, USA (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Mar 2024 - German Parasitology Society Drug Design & Development meeting, Würzburg (speaker from the lab: Eric Schwegler)
Feb 2024 - Biophysical Society Meeting, Philadelphia, PA, USA (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Jan 2024 - DPhG Talk, University of Marburg (Speaker from the lab: UH)
2023
Sep 2023 - Talks at Johns Hopkins University and University of Maryland, Baltimore (UH)
Sep 2023 - CRC1507 Retreat, Hirschegg (Speakers from the lab: Yasmine Damayanti, UH)
Jul 2023 - Aston University, MemTrain Lecture Series (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Jul 2023 - University of Groningen (Speaker from the lab: UH)
May 2023 - University of Osnabrück (Speaker from the lab: UH
May 2023 - HIPS Saarbrücken (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Apr 2023 - Biochemical Society Conference "Molecular Mechanism of Membrane Proteins", Birmingham, UK (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Mar 2023 - Keystone Meeting NMR in Biological Systems, Hannover (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Mar 2023 - Annual Meeting of the Society for Virology, Ulm (Speaker from the lab: Kerstin Schwickert)
Feb 2023 - FEBS Special Meeting on ABC Proteins, ABC2023, Innsbruck, Austria (Speaker from the lab: Victor Hugo Pérez Carrillo)
Jan 2023 - Advances in Chemical Biology, Dechema, Frankfurt (Speaker from the lab: UH)
2022
Sep 2022 - TrypsSchool on pathogenic trypanosomatids, Sao Paulo, Brazil (Speaker from the lab: Eric Schwegler)
Sep 2022 - HaloMem Meeting, Halle (Speaker from the lab: Christoph Wiedemann)
Sep 2022 - DPhG Tagung, Marburg (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Aug 2022 - UKRI/BBSRC-EMBO Satellite Symposium on Ion Channels, Chania, Greece
(Speaker from the lab: UH)
Jun 2022 - GDCh Biochemistry Meeting, Münster (Speaker from the lab: UH)
May 2022 - Verband der chemischen Industrie, Steinheimer Gespräche, Mainz
(Speaker from the lab: UH)
Jan 2022 - Irseer Naturstofftage, Dechema (Speaker from the lab: UH)
2021
Dec 2021 - TU Munich, Department of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Nov 2021 - Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Sep 2021 - Science Day, Mainz (Speaker from the lab: Charlotte Guhl)
Jul 2021 - Microverse Lunch Meeting (Speakers from the lab: Mai Anh Tran, Victor Pérez Carrillo, Marta Bogacz)
Mar 2021 - MiCom 2021: 8th International Conference on Microbial Communication for Young Scientists, virtual (Speaker from the lab: Eric Schwegler)
Mar 2021 - 29th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Parasitology, virtual (Speaker from the lab: Eric Schwegler)
Feb 2021 - Giersch Conference on Quantitative Biology, virtual (Speaker from the lab: UH)
2020
Oct 2020 - GDCh Symposium honoring Prof. H. Arold, 100 Years of Biochemistry in Jena, FSU Jena (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Oct 2020 - Moscow Biomembranes Meeting, Moscow, Russia, (Speaker from the lab: UH), cancelled due to Corona
Jun 2020 - Gordon Research Conference on Ion Channels, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA, USA (Speaker from the lab: UH), cancelled due to Corona
Mar 2020 - 5th Interdisciplinary Symposium, JGU Mainz (Speaker from the lab: Kerstin Viet), cancelled due to Corona
Mar 2020 - European Alzheimer Academy Workshop, Bertinoro, Italy (Speaker from the lab: Charlotte Guhl), cancelled due to Corona
Mar 2020 - FEBS ABC 2020 Meeting, Innsbruck, Austria (Speakers from the lab: Dania Rose-Sperling & Mai Anh Tran)
Feb 2020 - Structural Biology and Biophysics Seminar (SBBS), Biozentrum, University of Basel, Switzerland (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Jan 2020 - Faculty of Medicine, Justus Liebig University Giessen (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Jan 2020 - Jena School for Microbial Communication, Cluster of Excellence "Balance of the Microverse" (Speaker from the lab: UH)
2019 and earlier
Nov 2019 - GBM Master Award Presentation, Mainz (Speaker from the lab: Sarah-Ana Mitrovic)
Nov 2019 - Dept. Chemistry and Biology, Bayreuth University (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Sep 2019 - 30th Ion Channel Conference, Sete, France (Speaker from the lab: Kerstin Viet)
Sep 2019 - TransMED Science Day, Mainz (Speaker from the lab: Erika Diehl)
Jul 2019 - Joint DFG/FAPESP Meeting on Neglected Tropical DIseases, Mainz (Speakers from the lab: UH & Annika Wagner)
Jun 2019 - Gordon Research Conference "Mechanisms of Membrane Transport", New London, NH. USA (Speaker from the lab: UH)
May 2019 - Virchow Centre for Experimental Biomedicine, Würzburg University (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Apr 2019 - Interdisciplinary Symposium, Mainz (Speaker from the lab: Mai Anh Tran)
Apr 2019 - Life Science Meeting, Mainz (Speaker from the lab: Kerstin Viet)
Jan 2019 - Advances in Chemical Biology Conference, DECHEMA, Frankfurt (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Jan 2019 - Groningen University, Inst. Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology, Groningen, Netherlands (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Nov 2018 - Bayreuth University, Dept. Biochemistry (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Nov 2018 - Proteins@Interfaces Winter School, MPI Polymer Research, Mainz (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Oct 2018 - Protease Research in Chemistry and Biology: Focus on Neglected Tropical Diseases, Sao Paulo, Brazil (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Sep 2018 - DynaMem Opening Symposium, Frankfurt (Speakers from the lab: UH & Mai Anh Tran)
Sep 2018 - Crispr Genome Editing Symposium, Mainz (Speaker from the lab: Erika Diehl)
Aug 2018 - Structure and Mechanism of Membrane Proteins, Birmingham, UK (Speaker from the lab: Benedikt Goretzki)
Jul 2018 - Gordon Research Conference "Drug Metabolism", Holderness, NH, USA (Speakers from the lab: UH & Annika Wagner)
Jun 2018 - 10th BMRZ Meeting, Bad Homburg (Speaker from the lab: Benedikt Goretzki)
Jun 2018 - Fulbright-Cottrell Workshop „Building Bridges - Junior Faculty Professional Development Workshop”, Berlin (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Apr 2018 - Life Science Meeting, Mainz (Speaker from the lab: Tina Berger)
Apr 2018 - GBM Transporter Colloquium, Rauischholzhausen (Speaker from the lab: Dania Rose-Sperling)
Mar 2018 - Interdisciplinary Symposium, Mainz (Speaker from the lab: Erika Diehl)
Mar 2018 - ABC 2018: From Multidrug Resistance to Genetic Disease, Innsbruck, Austria (Speaker from the lab: Dania Rose-Sperling)
Jan 2018 - Paul-Ehrlich-Institute (PEI), Langen (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Dec 2017 - TU Darmstadt, Dept of Chemistry (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Nov 2017 - Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Oct 2017 - BioChem Symposium, Mainz (Speakers from the lab: Benedikt Goretzki & Dania Rose-Sperling)
Oct 2017 - New Horizons in Membrane Transport and Communication, Frankfurt (Speaker from the lab: Benedikt Goretzki)
Sep 2017 - 26. Nachwuchswissenschaftlersymposium "Bioorganische Chemie", Berlin (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Jul 2017 - More viewpoints, better science, RCSA Cottrell Scholar Meeting, Tucson, AZ, USA (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Jul 2017 - Mainz University, Institutskolloquium, Inst. für Pharmazie und Biochemie (Speaker from the lab: UH)
May 2017 - Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Apr 2017 - BioChem Symposium, Mainz (Speaker from the lab: Annika Wagner)
Mar 2017 - Frühjahrssymposium des Jungchemikerforums, Mainz (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Mar 2017 - Interdisciplinary Symposium, Mainz (Speakers from the lab: Annika Wagner & Franziska v. Hammerstein)
Jan 2017 - Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Sep 2016 - 25. Nachwuchswissenschaftlersymposium "Bioorganische Chemie", Jena (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Jul 2016 - Science for Life Laboratory (SciLIfeLab), Stockholm, Sweden (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Jul 2016 - Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Apr 2016 - Interdisciplinary Symposium, Mainz (Speakers from the lab: Benedikt Goretzki & Dania Rose-Sperling)
Mar 2016 - ABC 2016: From Multidrug Resistance to Genetic Disease, Innsbruck, Austria (Speakers from the lab: UH & Dania Rose-Sperling)
Jun 2015 - Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA (Speaker from the lab: UH)
May 2015 - Mainz University, Institutskolloquium, Inst. für Pharmazie und Biochemie (Speaker from the lab: UH)
Awards, Fellowships and Recognitions for Group Members
2024
Marta Bogacz wins poster award at the Gordon Research Conference 'Thiol-Based Redox Regulation and Signaling', Barcelona, Spain
Sreelakshmi P.V. receives a DAAD PhD Fellowship for her work on membrane receptor dynamics!
Kerstin Thriene (Microplastic subgroup) wins the best talk award at the EUROBIOFILMS conference in Copenhague!
Ute Hellmich and Ryan Hibbs (UCSD) are elected Gordon Research Conference chairs, i.e. they will serve as vice chairs for the 'Ligand Recognition and Molecular Gating'
meeting in 2026 (Il Ciocco, Italy) and as chairs in 2028 (Ventura, USA)
Eric Schwegler wins best talk award at the German Parasitology Society's Drug Design & Development meeting in Würzburg!
Ute Hellmich becomes chair of the GBM Study section Chemical Biology
Ute Hellmich is re-elected to the joint working group chemical biology of DECHEMA, GDCh and GBM
2023
Ute Hellmich is invited to join the selection committe for the Fulbright-Cottrell Award
Iryna Todoriko joins us with an Erasmus fellowship from Lisbon University, PT
Rupali Sathe (joint postdoc with Stallforth & Papenfort labs) receives a Rowena Morse Fellowship
We are super proud and honored to have been asked to write the Nature News and Views on the pentameric TRPV3 structure by the Scheuring lab!
Victor Hugo Pérez Carrillo is selected to present his work at the ABC2023 meeting in Innsbruck, Austria
Ute Hellmich is selected as a member of the Fulbright-Cottrell Award Selection Committee
2022
Our lab is now part of three collaborative research centers funded by the DFG! CRC 1127 'ChemBioSys - Chemical Mediators in Complex Biosystems'; CRC 1278 'PolyTarget - Polymer-based nanoparticle libraries for targeted anti-inflammatory strategies' and CRC 1507 'Membrane-associated Protein Assemblies, Maschineries and Supercomplexes'!
Eric Schwegler is selected to join the TrypsSchool (Sao Paulo School of Advanced Science on Pathogenic Trypanosomatids)
Our joint paper with the Schirmeister lab ( Jung et al, Fluorovinylsulfones and -Sulfonates as Potent Covalent Reversible Inhibitors of the Trypanosomal Cysteine Protease Rhodesain: Structure–Activity Relationship, Inhibition Mechanism, Metabolism, and In Vivo Studies, J. Med. Chem., 64(16):12322-12358) was awarded the 2022 Phoenix Science Award in the category Pharmaceutical Chemistry!
Anh Quach from Drexel University, PA, USA joins us with a DAAD-RISE fellowship
Ute is a new member of the selection committee for the Carl-Duisberg-Gedächtnispreis awarded by the GDCh!
We are super proud and honored to have been asked to write the Preview on the first structure of a fungal TRP channel by the Moiseenkova-Bell lab! Read the original paper here:
Ahmed et al (2021) Structure of the ancient TRPY1 channel from Saccharomyces cerevisiae reveals mechanisms of modulation by lipids and calcium. Structure, S0969-2126(21)00298-7.
2021
Zoe Merz joins us with a Fulbright Fellowship from UC Berkeley, CA, USA
Charlotte Guhl wins best talk award at the Science day in Mainz!
Annika Wagner is selected for the 5-week Marine Biological Laboratory "Biology of Parasitism" Course in Woods Hole, MA, USA!
Charlotte Guhl is selected for the LIPID MAPS spring school!
Ute Hellmich is elected onto the advisory board of the Joint Group Chemical Biology of the DECHEMA, GDCh, DPhG and GBM
Benedikt Goretzki's and Julia Heiby's (Neuweiler lab in Würzburg) work on spider silk wins the ChemBioChem poster prize at the DECHEMA Advances in Chemical Biology Meeting!
2020
Benedikt Goretzki wins the poster award at the EMBL Virtual SAXS Meeting
Victor Hugo Pérez Carrillo receives a PROCOPE Mobility Fellowship of the French Embassy in Germany for a 2 month stay at CNRS Lyon
Ute Hellmich serves as guest editor for a FEBS Letters Special Edition "Diversity of Structure and Function of ABC Transporters"
Ute Hellmich receives a Boehringer Ingelheim Stiftung Exploration Grant
Eric Schwegler is awarded a PhD Fellowship from the GRK2015 - Life Scienes, Life Writing
Charlotte Guhl receives an Alzheimer Forschung Initiative (AFI) Travel Grant for the European Alzheimer Academy Workshop in Bertinoro, Italy
Dania Rose-Sperling receives a travel grant from the Hans Böckler Stiftung
Dania Rose-Sperling is selected to present a talk at the ABC2020 meeting in Innsbruck, Austria
Mai Anh Tran is selected to present her work at the ABC2020 meeting in Innsbruck, Austria
Mai Anh Tran receives a FEBS Youth Travel Fund (YTF) grant for the ABC2020 meeting in Innsbruck, Austria
Dania Rose-Sperlig receives a travel fellowship of the German Chemical Society (GDCh) for the ABC2020 meeting in Innsbruck, Austria
Charlotte Guhl is awarded a TransMED PhD fellowship
Erika Diehl receives a Sibylle Kalkhof-Rose PhD Award
2019
Ute Hellmich is awarded the Hoechst Dozentenpreis der Aventis Foundation und des Fonds der Chemischen Industrie
Sarah-Ana Mitrovic is awarded the GBM Masterpreis (Gesellschaft für Biochemie und Molekularbiologie) for her outstanding MSc thesis
Our new Nature Communications paper is featured on the JGU department homepage!
Victor Hugo Pérez Carrillo joins us with a DAAD-CONACYT PhD Fellowship
Benedikt Goretzki receives an EMBO short term fellowship for a 3 month stay at Groningen University
Benedikt Goretzki receives a Boehringer Ingelheim Travel Fellowship (declined) for a 3 month stay at Groningen University
Erika Diehl wins the Best Talk Award at the 6th TransMED Science Day
Kerstin Viet is selected to present her work at the 30th Ion Channel Meeting
Kerstin Viet is awarded a PhD Fellowship of the Max Planck Graduate Centre
Nina Jacobs receives the "Preis des Gutenberg Lehrkollegs für hervorragende studentische Arbeiten" for the best Bachelor thesis, Faculty 09
Nicolas Grinberg joins us with a Schull-Yang International Experience Award from McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Our new Structure paper is featured on the JGU department homepage!
Mai Anh Tran wins the Best Talk Award at the 4th Interdisciplinary Symposium, Mainz
Our new Angwandte paper (Wagner et al) is featured as an ESRF Spotlight on Science and on the JGU homepage!
Kerstin Viet is awarded the Adolf Todt Prize for her outstanding master thesis
2018
Benedikt Goretzki wins Best Poster Award at the Proteins@Interfaces Winterschool, MPI-P, Mainz
Erika Diehl is awarded the Science Prize at the Crispr-Cas Symposium, Mainz
Dania Rose-Sperling receives a travel and research grant from the Hans Böckler Stiftung for a three month stay at CNRS-Université Lyon
Erika Diehl receives a Fulbright PhD Fellowship for a six month stay at Johns Hopkins University
Annika Wagner is selected to give a talk at the Gordon Conference "Drug Metabolism"
Ute Hellmich is elected as the Ortsverbandsvorsitzende Mainz-Wiesbaden of the German Chemical Society (GDCh) (together with Prof. Eva Rentschler)
Dania Rose-Sperling is selected to give a talk at the GBM Transporter Colloquium
Erika Diehl wins Best Talk Award at the 3rd Interdisciplinary Symposium, Mainz
Ute Hellmich is invited to the Gordon Conference "Drug Metabolism" as a plenary speaker
Ute Hellmich is elected onto the FEBS ABC Scientific Advisory Board
Dania Rose-Sperling is selected to talk about her work at the FEBS ABC meeting
Dania Rose-Sperling receives a FEBS Travel Award for the Meeting "ATP-Binding Cassette (ABC) Proteins: From Multidrug Resistance to Genetic Disease" in Innsbruck, Austria
Ute Hellmich serves as guest editor for a BBA Biomembranes Special Issue
2017
Erika Diehl is awarded a PhD fellowship from TransMED
Dania Rose-Sperling is awarded a PhD fellowship from the Hans Böckler Stiftung
Blanca Bach joins us with an ERASMUS fellowship from U Bacelona, Spain
Benedikt Goretzki is selected to give a talk at the International Symposium New Horizons in
Membrane Transport and Communication
Ute Hellmich chairs the Gordon Research Seminar "Mechanisms of Membrane Transport" in New London, NH, USA
Benedikt Goretzki and Carolyn Barnes jointly raise a DAAD-RISE fellowship
Dania Rose-Sperling and Sarah Sullivan jointly raise a DAAD-RISE fellowship
Benedikt Goretzki and Dania Rose-Sperling are selected to visit the Gordon Conference "Mechanisms of Membrane Transport"
Ute Hellmich wins the Fulbright-Cottrell Award for excellence in research and teaching Pressemitteilungen: Uni Mainz/Fulbright Commission/RCSA
Ute Hellmich co-chairs the CECAM meeting "Ion Transport from Physics to Physiology: the Missing Rungs in the Ladder" in Lausanne, Switzerland
Franziska von Hammerstein becomes a junior member of the Gutenberg Academy
2016
Benedikt Goretzki receives a PhD fellowship from the Max Planck Graduate Centre
Ute Hellmich wins prize for best talk at the Bioorganische Chemie Nachwuchswissenschaftersymposium in Jena
Annika Wagner is awarded a Travel and Research Fellowship from the Prof. Rochelmeyer Foundation
Franziska von Hammerstein wins best poster at the DPhG Meeting
Dania Rose-Sperling wins a FEBS ABC Meeting best poster award
Dania Rose-Sperling is selected to talk about her work at the FEBS ABC meeting
July 2023 - Ute's inaugural lecture (Antrittsvorlesung) at FSU Jena and a big lab reunion with almost all our previous members and very special guests!!! An abolutely unforgettable day!!!
May 2023 - The first Thuringian 800 MHz spectrometer moves in! The highest field in the state now available at the NMR platform Jena thanks to the generous support of the European Union, the Thuringian Ministry of Economy, Science and Digital Society (TMWWDG), and the FSU Jena!
May 2023 - Lab BBQ in Jena's own paradise to celebrate Dania's and Mai's successful PhD defenses! Congratulations and thank you for organizing a wonderful party!
March 2023 - Congratulations, Dr Mai! Mai succesfully defended her PhD thesis! In probably one of our most interdisciplinary projects yet, she showed how much bacterial membrane transporters depend on their lipid environment, what a polymer chemist can do to keep them happy, how to use these tricks to tame other membrane receptors, why you even need all these membrane proteins in the first place... oh, and a small side project on TRP channels!
Looking forward to the next steps in this exciting project together with Stallforth Lab! :-)
HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE AND ALL THE BEST FOR 2023!!!!
12/2022 - Enjoying the beautiful Jena Christmas Market (for some their first Christmas Market visit ever!) with roasted almonds, Thuringia sausages, and mulled wine! (not neccessarily in that order...)
Nov 2022 - Congratulations, Dr Dania!
Dania succesfully defended her PhD thesis on the structural dynamics of ABC transporters. In her work, she was able to show how remote regions in these protein's nucleotide binding domain communicate via conserved functional motifs, the role lipids play for transport and that there are some interesting differences between closely related ABCs.
During her work, Dania was supported by a Hans Böckler Foundation PhD fellowship and spent time in the labs of our friends at CNRS Lyon and Groningen University.
Congratulations Dania and all the best for the next steps in Jena! See you around ;-)
Ice Skating!!!
12/2022 - To enjoy the winter weather, we went ice skating with our friends from the Pohnert and Hertweck Labs! Thank you very much for the invitation, we had such a blast!
HALLOWEEN 2022!!!
August 2022 - Enjoying the last days of summer with a wonderful garden party with current and future lab members and our friends from the Stallforth Lab!!!
August 2022 - Enjoying the last days of summer with a wonderful garden party with old and new lab members and our friends from the Stallforth Lab!!!
August 2022 - Enjoying the last days of summer with a wonderful garden party with old and new lab members and our friends from the Stallforth Lab!!!
06/2022 - Welcome BBQ for new postdoc Aditya and good-bye party for Fulbright fellow Zoe!
We are/were excited to have you both in the group! Zoe, we are glad you got to enjoy Europe to its fullest and all the best for your upcoming PhD in Princeton!!!
Feb 2022 - Kira succesfully defends her Master thesis in which she looked at the function, folding and inhibition of essential enzymes from protozoan parasites! Congratulations, Kira!
Mar/Apr 2022 - and the science fun continues with Vivien and Sabrina, who join us for their BSc theses to investigate the structural dynamics of parasitic and bacterial proteins!
Already 4 papers accepted on TRPV4 and friends this year! The latest one is a joint effort by Christoph, Bene and Zoe with help from Frederike and former MSc student Pauline on the extent of disorder in TRPV channel N-termini! Congrats everyone!
Jan/Feb 2022 - We welcome new interns to the lab!
Florian will work on TRP channels and neuropathies, Natia on enzymes from Neglected Tropical Disease pathogens and Inam on all things trypanosomes... enjoy your time in the lab!
Halloween 2021!
Sep 2021 - We welcome Alina and Jean, who will carry out their PhD theses with us and Zoe, who joins us from UC Berkeley with a Fulbright Fellowship! Alina will work on membrane proteins involved in microbial communication, Jean will look at trypanosome enzyme dynamics and ligand binding and Zoe will investigate TRP channel structural dynamics!
August 2021 - Congratulations, Dr Erika!
Erika succesfully defended her PhD thesis about the many faces of the human TRPV4 ion channel in Mainz. In her work, she was able to structurally pinpoint the binding sites of multiple regulatory partners of TRPV4 on the channel (e.g. Nature Commun 2021).
During her work, Erika was supported by numerous fellowships including a Fulbright PhD Fellowship which allowed her to work with our friends, the Sumner Lab at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore for six months. In addition, Erika collaborated with chemists (Chemistry 2020), pharmacologists (J Med Chem 2021) and other members from our lab (e.g. Angewandte 2019) on a number of topics.
July 2021
Our first lab BBQ in Jena!
Finally... ... and only the first of many!!!
June 2021
The best lab meetings are the ones where everyone shines bright... Yes, we are still zooming, but so are our thoughts and ideas :-)
May/Jun 2021 - The more the merrier!
A warm welcome to Hannah, Katja and Kira who will join or growing team in Jena! Hannah joins us as a technical assistant with expertise in cell biology, Katja is our new team assistant and Kira will work on her master thesis on essential enzymes from neglected tropical disease pathogens!
We are very grateful to be supported by a grant from the Helaba together with our colleagues from Goethe-University Frankfurt and the Covid-19 NMR initiative to work on the molecular basis of interaction of biomolecules in vaccine formulations against infectious diseases (see press releases here, here or here)
More happy news in March and April 2021...
Pauline submitted her Master thesis on TRP channel structural dynamics! Congratulations! Pauline's work constitutes the last MSc thesis that we had the pleasure to host in our lab in Mainz (and during a pandemic no less!)
Now, as we are getting ready to greet the first undergrads in Jena...
... we also want to take the opportunity for a big thank you to all the Master/Bachelor students and interns that worked with us over the last few years in Mainz! You were amazing & we count ourselves very lucky to have worked with you!
In other exciting news, in Jena, our team is steadily growing. In April, Annika is back as a postdoc, Christoph joins us as a postdoc from Halle University and Emma is our first Bachelor student in Jena! Welcome, great to have you all on board!
March 2021 - papers, papers, papers, papers!
This month, we are happy to announce that a total of four papers were accepted for publication! This includes the last two master pieces by Patrick on Rhodesain, a joint study with the Sumner group which features the work Erika did on TRPV4 at Johns Hopkins with a Fulbright Fellowship and our review on TRP channel intrinsically disordered regions. We are particularly happy that undergrad Jean participated in this study that it will be featured in a JMB Special Edition on Ion Channels!
Unstructural Biology of TRP Ion Channels: The Role of Intrinsically Disordered Regions in Channel Function and Regulation
Systematic comparison of 175 transient receptor potential ion channel structures with regard to intrinsic disorder and the role of these regions and their post-translational modifications for channel function.
Journal of Molecular Biology, doi:10.1016/j.jmb.2021.166931
Structure, interdomain dynamics and pH-dependent autoactivation of pro-rhodesain, the main lysosomal cysteine protease from African trypanosomes
First structure of a trypanosomal CatL protease in the autoinhibited form reveals a pH sensitive salt bridge that explains how the parasites can avoid premature autocleavage!
Journal of Biological Chemistry, in press
Neuropathy-causing TRPV4 mutations disrupt TRPV4-RhoA interactions and impair neurite extension
Work with the Sumner Lab: the first time the phenotype-specific loss of a TRPV4-protein interaction has been observed! This explains how neuropathy but not skeletal dysplasia channelopathy mutants affect neurite outgrowth!
Nature Communications, 12(1):1444
Warhead Reactivity Limits the Speed of Inhibition of the Cysteine Protease Rhodesain
Study with the Neuweiler and Schirmeister labs on the surprising finding that the reactivity of a specific warhead, and not binding of the peptidic recognition unit, limits the rate constant of protease inhibition.
ACS Chemical Biology, doi.org/10.1021/acschembio.0c00911
Mar 2021 - Congratulations, Dr Annika!
Annika successfully defended her PhD! Annika figured out how a small, covalent inhibitor leads to the unexpected dimerization of an essential enzyme from African trypanosomes (Wagner et al. 2019, Angew. Chem.), how 19F NMR can help to study inhibitor binding (Dietschreit, Wagner et al 2020, Angew. Chem.) and how the unique lysosomal domain of the human TRPML2 ion channel is regulated by pH (Viet*, Wagner* et al 2019, Structure).
Oh, she also (co-)authored another eight papers and there is something going on with dinosaurs, but that's for another time and place.... 🙂
Today we celebrated Dr Annika via zoom, but we will hopefully repeat this in person soon!!!
February 2021
We welcome Sabine who joins the team as our new technician! In addition, Nina is back for her MSc thesis in collaboration with the Schindelin lab in Würzburg! So great to have you join the group again! Good luck with your project and lots of fun!
Jan 2021: Moving to Jena - despite the pandemic and a snow storm...
Packing boxes (sooo many boxes) in our lab in Mainz...
... and trying to not forget the most important pieces of equipment! 🙂
And there are even more boxes... who knew a lab consists of SO MUCH STUFF?!?
Unpacking in our new labs in Jena and everybody is in a great mood, because there are so many exciting science adventures with our new colleagues ahead!
Thank you all for welcoming us so warmly!!!
We officially joined the Institute of Organic & Macromolecular Chemistry & the Microverse Cluster!!!
(Here's a pic of us on the IOMC balcony when we visited last summer)
Dec 2020 - Congratulations, Dr Bene!
Bene successfully defended his PhD! For his exciting work on TRP ion channels and spider silk proteins in the framework of the Max Planck Graduate Center he received his degree summa cum laude! Bene's highly dynamic studies show that structure is not everything when elucidating protein function and that "where there is a will, there is a way" when trying to extract information out of a truly unruly protein. 🙂
The lab party was hosted via zoom, but we will certainly have that BBQ once we can all meet in person again!!!
Dec 2020 - Congratulations Nadine for submitting your Bachelor thesis!
Nadine's work on trypanosomal redox enzymes and their inhibition presents the 25th and final Bachelor thesis we had the pleasure to host at Uni Mainz in the last 5 years. But we will certainly follow up on Nadine's exciting results in Jena, soon...
Dec 2020 - Congratulations, Dr Patrick!
Patrick succesfully defended his PhD thesis! In another highly successful collaboration between the Schirmeister and Hellmich labs, Patrick worked on the trypanosomal cysteine protease rhodesain, which allows the parasites to cross the blood-brain barrier of the human host. He obtained the first crystal structure of a trypanosomal CathL-like zymogen and discovered a new structural motif that explains the pH-dependent pro-rhodesain autocleavage mechanism so that the enzyme becomes activated only once it reaches the lysosome! An important regulatory mechanism that may potentially be used to interfere with rhodesain function for novel anti-trypanosomal drugs!
Dr Patrick, congratulations, we are very proud of you and we will miss you and your unique sense of humor that always made us laugh even when the going was tough!
Nov 2020 - Congratulations, Dr Franzi!
Franzi succesfully defended her PhD! As a joint student between the Schirmeister & Hellmich labs, she worked on novel allosteric inhibitors against Dengue and Zika viruses, described the strictly intramolecular autocleavage process of the Zika virus NS2B-NS3 protease and made the (lab) world brighter every day! Congratulations, Dr. Franzi, we are proud of you!
October 2020
23.10.2020 - Julius has submitted his Bachelor thesis, congratulations!
September 2020
14.09.2020 - Welcome back Nina for your Forschungsmodul!
14.09.2020 - Dhana has submitted her Bachelor thesis! Congratulations!
11.09.2020 - Time to say good-bye... Julia is going from working with molecules to entire zebrafish and will pursue her PhD in Leipzig - good luck with everything, we will miss you!!!
1.9.2020 - Our joint paper with the Waldvogel group was accepted in Chemistry! Congratulations Lars and Erika!
Summer 2020
03.07.2020
Today we welcome our new Bachelor student, Nadine, who will work on the molecular mechanism and inhibition of an oxidoreductase from the parasite T. cruzi which causes Chagas disease in South America and - due to climate change - maybe soon here, too.
June/July 2020
We are happy to share multiple papers dealing with novel inhibitors for trypanosomal enzymes that were published together with our collaborators, the Schirmeister, Opatz and Tenzer Labs in Mainz and the Engels Lab in Würzburg! Read more here, here or here! Congratulations to everyone!
01.04.2020
We won't let the corona virus let us forget that there are more diseases that need to be fought: Eric joins the ranks as a PhD student and fellow of the GRK2015 "LIfe Sciences, Life Writing". He will work on inhibitors and the molecular mechanisms of essential enzymes from the parasite causing African Sleeping Sickness and related diseases such as Chagas disease or leishmaniasis affecting millions worldwide! Welcome!
01.05.2020
In these unusual times, we are happy to welcome three new group members! Marta joins us as a postdoc from Heidelberg University, Frederike joins us from Frankfurt for her PhD and Pauline is finally back with us as a master student! Welcome to all of you, we are happy to have you! 🙂
April 2020
Our new paper has just been published in Angewandte Chemie (Dietschreit, Wagner et al., 2020, Angewandte Chemie)! We describe the use of 19F NMR spectroscopy for the detailed analysis of an essential enzyme from African trypanosome in complex with a fluorinated inhibitor. We had previously observed that the inhibitor induces protein dimerization (Wagner et al., 2019, Angewandte Chemie). Now we combine 19F NMR spectroscopy of the bound and free inhibitor with QM/MM calculations in a fantastic collaboration with the group of Christian Ochsenfeld at LMU Munich, an approach that may be useful to study drug-protein complexes in general due to the abundance of 19F in drug-like molecules.
Read more here: Dietschreit, J.C.B., Wagner, A., Le, T.A., Klein, P., Schindelin, H., Opatz, T., Engels, B., Hellmich#, U.A., Ochsenfeld#, C. (2020) Predicting 19F NMR Chemical Shifts: A Combined Computational and Experimental Study of a Trypanosomal Oxidoreductase-Inhibitor Complex. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl., accepted DOI: 10.1002/anie.202000539 (#corresponding authors)
March 2020
27.03.2020
We are pleased to announce that our research will be supported by a Boehringer Ingelheim Stiftung Exploration Grant. These grants are awarded to outstanding junior researchers in Chemistry, Biology or Medicine to explore novel, exciting and and risky research avenues! We will use this opportunity to study parasitic ion channels and their human counterparts. Watch this space for news updates!
23.03.2020
Strange times, but this has not stopped Jean to join the lab for an internship. A big hooray for theoretical projects! Welcome! 🙂
16.03.2020
We are currently on a SARS-CoV-2 enforced wet lab break, focussing on writing papers and theses.
By staying at home, minimizing personal contacts and washing our hands frequently, we are doing our share to support the global efforts to fight against this pandemic.
If you need to contact us, we are all availble via our university email accounts.
Stay safe, sane and healthy!
02.03.2020
Dhana joins us for her Bachelor thesis! Welcome and enjoy the TRP! 🙂
01.03.2020
Meeting Time! Dania, Mai, Victor and Ute will attend the FEBS ABC Meeting in Innsbruck, Austria, supported by travel awards from FEBS, the Hans Böckler Stiftung and the GDCh. Dania and Mai will also present talks about their work - congratulations to everyone!!!
February 2020
10.02.2020
Isabell submitted her Bachelor thesis, congratulations! 🙂
03.02.2020
Congratulations Thea for submitting your Bachelor thesis! 🙂
30.01.2020
Our joint RCSA (research corporation for science advancement) proposal with the Charkoudian lab at Haverford College, PA, USA to kick-start a US-German collaboration has been funded! 🙂 Mai will spend two months in Pennsylvania using advanced vibrational spectroscopy on her favorite proteins before Zach from the Charkoudian lab joins us over the summer for NMR studies! Exciting times ahead with new friends!
Congratulations!
Charlotte is awarded a TransMED PhD Fellowship!🙂
News 2019
Dec - Our joint paper with the Neuweiler group (Heiby*, Goretzki* et al., 2019, Nature Commun.) on the role of methionine in the protein core of a spider silk protein on dynamics and oligomerization behavior is featured in Laborjournal
Dec - Charlotte has been accepted to participate as a student researcher at the European Alzheimer Academy Workshop in Bertinoro, Italy! Congratulations!
Dec - Congratulations Eric for submitting your Master thesis!
Nov - Very succesful week in terms of publications - Bene's paper on the NMR assignments of a dynamically perturbed spider silk protein, our collaborative paper on novel antitrypanosomal agents (with Annika) as well as our paper on novel Zika and Dengue virus protease inhibitors (with Franzi) in collaboration with the Schirmeister group were just accepted! Congratulations to all authors!
Nov - Kerstin is awarded the Adolf Todt Preis for her outstanding Master thesis and Erika receives the Sibylle Kalkhof-Rose PhD Award at the 2019 Stiftertag of the JGU Mainz. Congratulations!!!
Nov - Julia just submitted her Master thesis! Congratulations! 🙂
Nov - Sarah-Ana presents her Master thesis at the GBM Lecture and is presented with the GBM Masterpreis by the dean, Prof Schneider, and Marc submits his BSc thesis. Congratulations to both of you! And of course, at this time of the year, we are celebrating with our annual pumpkin carving event!
Oct - Ute is awarded the Hoechst Dozentenpreis of the Aventis Foundation and the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie (FCI)! Read more here and here
Oct - Sarah-Ana is awarded the GBM Masterpreis 2019 from the Gesellschaft für Biochemie und Molekularbiologie for her outstanding MSc thesis! Congratulations! 🙂
Oct - Welcome to our new Bachelor students Isabell, Julius and Thea!!! 🙂
Oct - A warm welcome to our new PhD student Victor who joins us from Mexico City with a DAAD-CONACYT PhD Fellowship! Good luck with everything! 🙂
Sep - Benedikt is awarded a Boehringer-Ingelheim Travel Fellowship (declined) and an EMBO Short-term Fellowship for a 3 months research stay at Groningen University! Congratulations, Bene! 🙂
Sep - Erika wins the Best Talk Award at the 6th TransMED Science day! Congratulations! 🙂
Sep - Kerstin presents a talk about the human TRPML2 ion channel at the 30th Ion Channel Meeting in Sete, France
Sep - Our new paper demonstrating the power of combining NMR spectroscopy and PET-FCS on the folding and oligomerization of spider silk proteins has just been accepted in Nature Communications! A fantastic collaboration with the Neuweiler group in Würzburg, congratulations to Julia and Benedikt, the shared first authors of this study! Read more here or look the paper directly!
Sep - Kerstin is awarded a PhD Fellowship of the Max Planck Graduate Centre! Congratulations! 🙂
Aug - Sarah-Ana submitted her Master thesis! Congratulations! 🙂
Aug - Nina receives the Award of the Gutenberg Lehrkolleg for her outstanding Bachelor thesis! Congratulations, well deserved! 🙂
Aug - Congratulations Eva for submitting your Bachelor thesis!
Jul - Congratulations to Ilja and Moritz for submitting your bachelor theses!
Jul - Welcome back, Charlotte from a six month research stay at UT Southwestern! Great to have you in the lab again! And welcome to our new Bachelor student Marc, hopefully you can make some of those cations stick! 🙂
Jul - Julia and Eric are off to Utrecht for the 2-week Summer School "Exploring Nature's Molecular Machines" organized by leaders in the field of structural biology! Together with their class mates they will have access to a 900 MHz NMR spectrometer, the mass spectrometers of the Netherlands Proteomics Center, a semi-automated protein crystallization facility, cell culture facilities and advanced microscopy facilities to explore how proteins form assemblies of “molecular machines” that work together to sustain the living state!
Jul - A warm welcome to Jakob, our new intern from Frankfurt University! 🙂
Jun - Franzi's and Luca's paper on autocleavage behavior of the Zika virus NS2B-NS3 serine protease essential for virus maturation has been accepted for publication in FEBS Letters! Congratulations on this very special "baby"! 🙂 Read the paper here!
Jun - Kerstin's and Annika's paper on TRPML2 is the most read on the Structure homepage! Congratulations! 🙂
Jun - Mai is at the Hessentag in Bad Hersfeld together with other PhD students from Frankfurt and Mainz to present the LOEWE-DynaMem Project to the interested public! In this highly interdisciplinary project, we are working together with colleagues from Mainz and Frankfurt University, the Frankfurt Institute of Advanced Studies and the Max Planck Institutes for Biophysics (Frankfurt) and Polymer Research (Mainz) to understand membrane structure and dynamics across spatial and time scales.
May - A warm welcome to Nicolas, our new intern from McGill University in Montréal! We hope you enjoy your time in Germany! Bienvenue et Herzlich willkommen! 🙂
May - Congratulations Nina for submitting your Bachelor thesis! And of course we are very happy that you will continue this TRP with us a bit longer... 🙂
May - Welcome back, Caro! So good to see you again! 🙂
Apr - Our paper "Structure of the human TRPML2 ion channel extracytosolic/lumenal domain" has just been accepted for publication in Structure! Congratulations Kerstin and Annika, our lead authors on this paper! Here, we present the first high resolution view of any TRPML2 domain and provide a rational basis for pH regulation of cation flux of TRPML channels in different endolysosomal comaprtments! (read the paper here). Find the featured article here.
Apr - Our new paper describing how you can use 19F NMR spectroscopy to answer exciting questions about (membrane) proteins was just accepted! Read more here! Congratulations to all the authors, Dania, Mai, Luca and Bene!
Apr - The 4th edition of our Interdisciplinary Symposium Mainz was a huge success! A whole day of discussing science and spending time with old and new friends! And Mai won the Best Talk Award! Congratulations!
Apr - Welcome to our new Bachelor student, Eva! Enjoy your time in the lab! 🙂
Mar - Congratulation for submitting your Diploma thesis, Caro! 🙂
Mar - Welcome to our new Bachelor students, Ilja and Moritz! Have fun! 🙂
Mar - Welcome (back), Eric for your F2 internship and Master thesis!
Feb - Welcome (back), Sarah-Ana! Have a lot of fun with your master thesis!
Jan - Welcome to Karsten, our new F2 intern! Have a lot of fun with your experiments!
Jan - Kerstin is awarded the Adolf Todt Prize for her outstanding master thesis! Congratulations, Kerstin, well done! 🙂
Jan - Our Angewandte paper is featured as a Spotlight on Science by ESRF (European Synchrotron Radiation Facility)! Link to the press release from JGU Mainz.
Jan - Welcome to our new Bachelor student Nina and welcome back, Josch, as a joint HiWi between our group and the Friedland lab!
Jan - Our new paper "Inhibitor-induced dimerization of an essential oxidoreductase from African trypanosomes" has just been accepted in Angewandte Chemie. Congratulations Annika, Erika and Daniel! Read the paper here!
News 2018
17.12.2018 - Congratulations Josch for submitting your Bachelor thesis!
26.11.2018 - A warm welcome to our new Master student Julia! Good luck and lots of fun with your experiments! 🙂
22.11.2018 - Benedikt won the Best Poster Award at the Proteins@Interfaces Winter School! Congratulations! 🙂
19.11.2018 - Congratulations Axel for submitting your Bachelor Thesis!
19.11.2018 - Welcome new lab member Charlotte! Have fun taming those ion channels! 🙂
05.11.2018 - A warm welcome to our new intern Simon! Enjoy your time with us and good luck with your experiments!
01.11.2018 - Welcome back Kerstin for your PhD thesis and Luca for some extra months in the lab to wrap up a promising story (no pressure 😉 ) ! Good luck and lots of fun with your research! We are glad we get to keep you both for a while longer!
30.10.2018 - Luca just submitted his Master thesis! Congratulations! 🙂
29.10.2018 - Welcome to our new intern Eric! Have fun fluorinating proteins! 🙂
06.-12.10.2018 - Greetings from Brazil where Annika and Ute are presenting their work at the Joint DFG/FAPESP Workshop on Tropical Neglected Diseases in Sao Paulo! A big thank you to our amazing Brazilian hosts for making this an unforgettable meeting!
28.09.2018 - Congratulations Kerstin for submitting your Master thesis! Good job! 🙂
15.08.2018 - Dania was awarded a travel and research grant for a three month stay at CNRS-Université Lyon from the Hans Böckler Stiftung! Congratulations, Dania! 🙂 Tu vas nous manquer! Bon voyage et bonne chance!
03.09.2018 - Erika is awarded the Science Prize and she will give the laureate lecture at the CRISPR Genome Editing Symposium here in Mainz. Congratulations! 🙂 read more here!
29.08.2018 - Big BBQ and Good-bye party for all the ones that are leaving us. 🙁
Blanca and Daniel were with us for almost a year, Tina is wrapping up her time in the lab and Dania is getting ready to go to Lyon for three months... Good luck with all your future endeavors and don't forget - we will miss you all!
20.08.2018 - Welcome to our new Bachelor student Josch in collaboration with the Friedland group! Have fun with your experiments!
09.08.2018 - Erika was awarded a Fulbright fellowship! Congratulations, Erika! 🙂 With this fellowship, she will join the group of Charlotte Sumner at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in 2019 to learn more about TRPV4 channelopathies! We will miss you a lot but we are also excited to hear about your adventures when you come back to us!
08.08.2018 - The whole team went climbing at the Kletterwald! We had a lot of fun, even though some of us kept hanging in the trees 🙂
01.08.2018 - Our new paper "Structural basis of TRPV4 N-terminus interaction with Syndapin/ PACSIN1-3 and PIP2" has just been accepted in Structure. Congratulations Bene, Nina and Erika! As a scientist, you know why the mechanosensitive ion channel TRPV4 is important every time you desparately need to run to the bathroom, because you had too much coffee. 🙂 But that's not all - read more about why ion channels matter here!
30.07.2018 - A warm welcome to Hannah, our new F2 intern! We hope you will enjoy learning about how to produce and purify the proteins that you will inhibit in your upcoming master thesis with the Schirmeister lab! A big shoutout to interdisciplinarity, collaborations and (science) friendships! 🙂
23.07.2018 - Congratulations Ann-Katrin on submitting your Bachelor thesis! 🙂
16.07.2018 - A warm welcome to our new Bachelor Student, Angelika! We hope you will enjoy playing with ion channels just as much as we do! 🙂
08.-13.07.2018 - Annika and Ute are visiting the Gordon Research Conference "Drug Metabolism" in New Hampshire, USA where they are both giving a talk!
03.07.2018 - Summer is rolling and so are we! We held a Summer Roll Rolling Competition that had one clear winner - Caro! But most importantly: a big thank you to Mai for this great idea and for hosting this exciting event!
29.06.2018 - Congratulations Blanca on submitting your internship report and your bachelor thesis! We are happy you are still staying with us a bit longer! 🙂
27.06.2018 - The whole team went to the 10th BMRZ Workshop on Magnetic Resonance Techniques in Bad Homburg where Bene gave a talk about how his favorite TRP channel interacts with lipids and proteins.
04.06.2018 - Welcome to our two newest group members - Bachelor student Axel and Diploma Student Caro!
15.05.2018 - Welcome Sunshine! First BBQ of the season to officially welcome our new group members!
24.04.2018 - The Life Science Meeting Mainz, organized by PhD students for PhD students took place today. From our lab, Tina presented her work on lipid-TRP channel interactions!
17.04.2018 - After already coming with us to the Transporter Kolloquium, Mai now officially joins our group for her PhD - welcome! 🙂
11.-13.04.2018 - Dania, Erika, Mai and Ute went to the GBM Transporter Kolloqium in Rauischholzhausen, where we got to stay in a beautiful castle and Dania gave a talk about her work!
03.04.2018 - A warm welcome to our new Bachelor student, Ann-Katrin! Have a lot of fun with your experiments! 🙂
16.03.2018 - The 3rd Interdisciplinary Symposium took place today! As always, it was great fun and featured talks from all over the university! Visiting the MAMI accelerator and A1 spectrometers was especially exciting! (Program can be found here: 3rd Interdisciplinary Symposium). From our lab, Erika presented her work on TRP channels AND she won an award for the best talk! Congratulations!
26.02.2018 - A warm welcome to our new F2 intern/Master student Kerstin! Good luck and lots of fun with all your experiments! 🙂
12.02.2018 - Helau from the Rosenmontagszug 2018!
15.01.2018 - Congratulations Pauline for submitting your BSc thesis!
News 2017
20.12.2017 - Dania was awarded a FEBS Travel fellowship for the 2018 ABC Meeting in Innsbruck! Congratulations, Dania! 🙂
14.12.2017 -Our new paper "Permeating disciplines: overcoming barriers between molecular simulations and classical structure-function approaches in biological ion transport", inspired by the 2017 CECAM workshop co-organized by Ute was just accepted in BBA Biomembranes!
04.12.2017 - Congratulations Daniel for submitting your BSc thesis and welcome back to the lab as a student researcher!
21.11.2017 - Happy (very) belated Halloween! We nonetheless had great fun carving pumpkins and making soup!
26.10.2017 - Our new review "Comparison of mechanistic transport cycle models of ABC exporters" was accepted in BBA Biomembranes! Congratulations Dania!
16.10.2017 - A big welcome to our new Master student, Luca! 🙂
12.10.2017 - Wine tasting and Jazz concert with our good friends from Physics, the AK Berger!!! We had a lot of fun in this interdisciplinary mingle and getting a sense of what Mainz has to offer!
11.10.2017 - The second BioChem Symposium with talks from PhD students from Biochemistry and Biology takes place today! This event was organized by PhD students from AK Schneider and our group and features talks by Dania and Benedikt!
09.10.2017 - A warm welcome to our newest two group members - Bachelor student Pauline and Erasmus fellow Blanca from Barcelona! Have a lot of fun with your experiments! 🙂
04.10. - 07.10.2017 It's Meeting time! Erika is off to Strasbourg to learn about "Ion channels in hormonal homeostasis: TRP channels and Calcium Signalling" while the rest of the lab joins the "New Horizons in Membrane Transport and Communication Symposium" in Frankfurt, where Benedikt will give a talk about his work!
14.09.2017 - Good-bye from the lab, Franzi - we will miss you a lot!!!
06.09.2017 - Erika was awarded a TransMED PhD fellowship! Congratulations, Erika! 🙂
08.08.2017 - A warm welcome to our new Bachelor student, Daniel! Good luck and lots of fun with your experiments! 🙂
02.08.2017 - A new paper describing the development of inhibitors for thodesain and falcipain, proteases important in the parasitesTrypanosoma brucei causing African Sleeping Sickness and Plasmodium falciparum causing Malaria has just been accepted in J. Med. Chem! From our lab, Annika was involved - congratulations! This was a highly collaborrative project between multiple groups in Mainz and Heidelberg, at UCSF, at the Universities of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli and Messina, Italy, as well as Université de Sfax, Tunisia. Congratulations to everyone!
15.07.2017 - Dania was awarded a PhD fellowship of the Hans Böckler Stiftung. Congratulations, Dania! 🙂
12.-14.07.2017 - Ute is off to the RCSA (reserach coorperation for science advancement) conference "More viewpoints - better science" which brings together the US-based Cottrell Scholars and the Germany-based Fulbright-Cottrell Scholars to discuss ideas and new approaches in research and teaching. https://www.fulbright.de/news/program-news/article/more-viewpoints-better-science
24. - 30.6.2017 - Dania, Bene and Ute are off to the Gordon Research Seminar and Conference "Mechanisms of Membrane Transport" in New England where Ute is chairing the GRS! https://www.grc.org/mechanisms-of-membrane-transport-grs-conference/2017/
06.6.2017 - Congratulations Sarah for submitting your Bachelor thesis! 🙂
31.5.2017 - Welcome to our new intern Carolyn from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and congratulations for your DAAD-RISE fellowship! 🙂
29.5.2017 - A warm welcome to our new intern from Tübingen University, Doro! Good luck with everything! 🙂
28.5.2017 - Our new paper describing the NMR backbone assignments of the essential oxidoreductase tryparedoxin from Trypanosoma brucei in the oxidized and reduced forms as a prerequisite to test new drugs against African Sleeping Sickness has just been accepted! Congratulations Annika and Erika!
15.5.2017 - Welcome Sarah, our new intern from the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma and congratulations for your DAAD-RISE fellowship! Good luck with everything and enjoy your German experience! 🙂
15.04.2017 - Welcome back Erika! 🙂 Good luck with everything!
10.4.2017 - The first jointly organized Symposium for PhD students from the biology and the biochemistry groups at the JGU took place today: BioChem 2017! From our group, Annika presented her newest results on essential proteins from the parasite Trypanosoma brucei, which causes African Sleeping Sickness!
03.04. - 05.04.2017 Ute is off to Lausanne for the CECAM (Centre Europeene de Calcul Atomique et Moleculaire) Meeting "Ion Transport from Physics to Physiology - the missing rungs in the ladder" that she co-organized with Reba Howard and Lucie Delemotte from Stockholm and Vincenzo Carnevale and Brad Rothberg from Philadelphia. The meeting brings together researchers fascinated by ion translocation across biological membranes from a broad range of disciplines, such as computational biologists and wet lab experimentalists to discuss common goals and needs as well as ways to bridge existing (communication) divides. https://www.cecam.org/workshop-0-1481.html
27.03.2017 - Ute received the Cottrell-Fulbright Award 2017! from the press release: "With its Cottrell-Fulbright Award, the German-American Fulbright Commission in Berlin offers a unique opportunity for researchers in the fields of Chemistry, Physics, Astronomy, and Biochemistry. It rewards outstanding teacher-scholars who are recognized by their scientific communities on both sides of the Atlantic for the quality and innovation of their research programs and their academic leadership skills." (picture: ©Fulbright-Kommission/David Ausserhofer)
20.03.2017 - Congratulations Erika for submitting your Master thesis! 🙂
07.03.2017 - The 2nd Interdisciplinary Symposium took place today! This meeting featured twelve talks by students from five Fachbereiche (FB 02, 05, 08, 09, 10), covering everything from particle physics to psychology, from molecular biology to movie science, from journalism to economics... at least as much fun as last year's symposium! From our lab, Annika presented on how to fight African Sleeping Sickness and Franzi spoke about her work towards cures for Dengue and Zika fever.
Here you can find the full programme: 2nd Interdisciplinary Symposium_Programm
27.02.2017 - HELAU!!!!
20.02.2017 - Welcome Robin, our exchange student from Middlebury College, VT, USA! Have a lot of fun in Deutschland! 😀
06.02.2017 - Welcome to the team, Marie! Good luck with everything! 🙂
01.02.2017 - Benedikt was accepted into the Max Planck Graduate Center! Congratulations, Bene! 🙂
31.01.2017 - Congratulations Valentin for submitting your Bachelor thesis!
24.01.2017 - Franzi was selected as a junior member of the Gutenberg Academy! From the website: "The Gutenberg Academy brings up to 25 of the University's best PhD students and artists together and provides them with the chance to participate in an interdisciplinary exchange of ideas at the highest intellectual level." Congratulations, Franzi! 🙂
16.01.2017 - A big welcome to our new Bachelor student, Sarah-Ana. Good luck and have fun with all your experiments! 🙂
News 2016
09.12.2016 - The lab organized this year's IPB Christmas Party! It was so much fun - thanks to all IPB members for joining us!
05.12.2016 - Congratulations Tina for submitting your bachelor thesis! 🙂
17.10.2016 - Our new intern Lisa starts her "Vertiefungsmodul" for her MSc "Molekulare Biotechnologie" with us! We are happy to welcome our neighbor from Frankfurt University to Mainz!
16.10.2016 - Time for our biannual trip to watch Mainz 05 - this time defeating Darmstadt 2:1!
10.10.2016 - Welcome new BSc student Valentin! Good luck with everything!
30.09.2016 - Jenny's and Dania's review on ABC transporters and lipids was just accepted. Congratulations!
24.09.2016 - Our paper on novel inhibitors for parasitic cysteine proteases has just been accepted!
This was a collaboration between the Schirmeister group (Pharmacy @ Uni Mainz), the Engels group in Würzburg, the Krauth-Siegel group in Heidelberg and the Gonzalez group in Castella, Spain. Congratulations to everybody!
23.09.2016 - Ute won the prize for the best talk at the Symposium for Bioorganic Chemistry in Jena!
19.09.2016 - We took our first official lab trip to Phantasialand - it was so much fun!!!
31.08.2016 - Congratulations Sarah for submitting your bachelor thesis!!!
01.08.2016 - A warm welcome to our new bachelor student, Tina!!!
18.07.2016 - Congratulations Melanie for submitting your bachelor thesis!!! 🙂
28.06.2016 - A collaborative paper by the Schirmeister, Wich, Tenzer and Hellmich groups from Mainz and the Engels group from Würzburg has just been accepted for publication in JACS. Congratulations to everyone! http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/jacs.6b03052
01.06.2016 - Erika joins the lab as a Master student - welcome and good luck with everything!
And Benedikt rejoins as a PhD student - welcome back and lots of fun and success for the ride ahead!
17.05.2016 - Congratulations Benedikt for submitting your MSc thesis!!!! 🙂
14.05.2016 - Final game of the season, Mainz vs Hertha with the AK Hellmich family and friends!
14.04.2016 - A fantastic first (of hopefully many to come) meeting took place in Mainz today! The "Fächerübergreifendes Symposium 2016" featured talks by students from five Fachbereiche (FB 02, 05, 08, 09, 10), covering everything from particle physics to psychology, from molecular biology to movie science, from journalism to economics... Overall a fantastic success! From our lab, Dania presented her work on ABC transporters and Benedikt spoke about TRP channels.
Here you can find the full programme: Programm_Fächerübergreifendes Symposium_final
17.03.2016 - We just heard that our adopted group member Franzi (AK Schirmeister) won the poster award at her DPhG meeting for the presentation of her work on dengue virus protease! Congratulations, Franzi! 🙂
11.03.2016 - Dania wins a poster prize at the "2016 ABC Meeting: From Multidrug Resistance to Genetic Disease"! Congratulations!!! 🙂
07.03.2016 - Congratulations Yvonne for submitting your Bachelor thesis!
29.02.2016 - It's Meeting time! Benedikt, Dania, Franzi and Andrea are on their way to the 2nd G-NMR School at the BMRZ in Frankfurt, at the end of the week Annika and Tina will go to Berlin and hear about "Cutting Edge Concepts in Molecular Pharmacology: GPCRs - G-Proteins – TRP channels" before Dania and Ute are off to Innsbruck to present their talks and a poster at the "2016 ABC Meeting: From Multidrug Resistance to Genetic Disease"!
15.02.2016 - Welcome new bachelor students Melanie and Sarah! Good luck and lots of fun with your projects!!! 🙂
News 2015
03.12.2015 - Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year! We were psyched to host a Christmas party with all our past, present and future members!
01.12.2015 - Welcome new PhD student Annika!!! 🙂 Good luck with everything!
31.10.2015 - HAPPY HALLOWEEN from the Hellmich lab!!!!!!
09.10.2015 - Our new paper studying global and local dynamic consequences of nucleotide binding to an ABC transporter by solid-state and solution NMR is out today!
5.10.2015 - A warm welcome to our first BSc student, Yvonne! 🙂
18.09.2015 - Our first Lab Outing sent us to that most popular of all German pastimes - soccer!
Our homebase club Mainz 05 played against Hoffenheim and Mainz (rightfully) won 3:1! Good omens for the future?!? 🙂
15.09.2015 - Happy and sad news on the same day: Welcome new group member Dania! And good-bye to our Postdoc Nina, who will join Boehringer-Ingelheim as a Lab head - we are sad to see you go and will miss you but wish you all the best with your new adventures!!!
07.-10.09.2015 The whole team visited the GDCh NMR Meeting in Darmstadt! We let old spins evolve, flipped a few new ones and had a great time learning what's new in magnetic resonance!!!!
18.05.2015 - Welcome new intern Benedikt! We really like it when chemists get that BIOchemistry is cool, too 🙂
04.05.2015 - Welcome new grad student Tina! It's probably not a coincidence that the sun is shining today! 🙂
11.02.2015 - There are some real perks in setting up a new lab - free gummibears!
01.02.2015 - We are making progress! First little experiments up and running and the place starts to look like a real lab...