Santosh Kumar Kuncha was awarded with one of the prestigious Research Fellowships from the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), which enable doctoral researchers from abroad to pursue their postdoctoral research in Europe and around the world

The proposed project focuses on understanding the molecular consequences of a unique Legionella-specific post-translational modification, called phosphoribosyl-ubiquitination (PR-Ub), of the human host proteome. Even though the structural and molecular basis of the PR-ubiquitination reaction is well studied, several functional aspects remain elusive, e.g. the impact of PR-ubiquitination on host cell metabolism and its role in helping the parasite to evade cellular defense mechanisms like autophagy. Using a multidisciplinary approach, Santosh aims at deciphering the molecular consequences of PR-ubiquitination within cells and its effect on rewiring the host cell proteome network. Santosh has received funding for 24 months and will be situated in Ivan Dikic’s lab at Buchmann Institute for Molecular Life Sciences on Goethe University’s Riedberg campus.