ERC Grant for Malte Gersch
Max Planck researcher receives €2 million for the development of new biochemical tools for identifying and characterising new disease-realted proteins
The European Research Council (ERC) has selected Malte Gersch, group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology, for one of its coveted ERC Consolidator Grants. In his project ‘UbiPRO’, he aims to develop novel biochemical tools to characterise previously undiscovered proteins in the ubiquitin signalling system of the cell. The ERC is supporting the outstanding researcher with around two million euros over five years.
Malte Gersch is researching biochemical processes for information exchange in cells. There, the protein ubiquitin acts as a kind of ‘molecular Post-it note’, marking other proteins to control their degradation, transport or activity. In the new UbiPRO project, he will investigate the catalytic activities of special enzymes called deubiquitinases (DUBs). To this end, he will develop a chemoproteomic platform that can be used to analyse the activity of these enzymes. With the help of novel, chemically modified ubiquitin probes, complex polyubiquitin structures will be replicated and the mechanisms by which DUBs recognise and process specific signals will be deciphered. The project combines approaches from protein chemistry, chemoproteomics, and structural biology and aims to gain new insights into the regulation of the ubiquitin system – with potential implications for understanding disease mechanisms and developing therapeutic strategies.
About Malte Gersch
Malte Gersch studied chemistry and biochemistry at LMU Munich. During a research stay at Stanford School of Medicine, his interest in chemical biology was sparked, after which he completed his doctorate at TU Munich under Prof. Stephan Sieber. There, he researched the function and inhibition of the bacterial proteasome ClpP. During his postdoctoral stay in Cambridge (UK) with Prof. David Komander, he focused on the regulation and structure of human deubiquitinases. At the end of 2018, he joined the Chemical Genomics Centre at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology in Dortmund as a group leader. He heads an independent Emmy Noether junior research group at the Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at TU Dortmund University. Malte Gersch has received numerous awards for his research, including the Hans Fischer Prize, the Friedrich Weygand Prize, the Emil Erlenmeyer Medal and the ORCHEM Prize for junior scientists.
About the ERC Consolidator Grant
With its ERC Consolidator Grants, the European Research Council supports excellent scientists who have developed outstanding scientific personalities within a time frame of up to twelve years after completing their doctorates. The personalised funding offers the opportunity to carry out particularly innovative pioneering work in the natural sciences.