News from the Institute

Bacterial pathogens present a major public health concern, especially given the increasing emergence of antibiotic-resistant strains. As such, understanding the molecular details governing bacterial infection is of prime importance. A group of researchers from the Dikic group at IBCII and the group of Danielle Malo at McGill University (Canada) recently joined forces and today, published a first collaborative article in Nature Microbiology.

IBC2 Director Ivan Đikić received a honorary doctorate from Split University in a festive ceremony today, acknowledging his exceptional contribution to promoting science at Split University.

Since 2002, Ivan has built strong links with Split University’s School of Medicine, being a professor from 2002 till 2017, organizing multiple scientific events, promoting an active exchange and scientific collaborations with GU Frankfurt and – until recently – sustaining an outstation laboratory.

Today, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences announced the election of its new members for 2019. Amongst them is IBC2 director Ivan Đikić.

Since 1780, the Academy has regularly been electing new members to recognize their outstanding achievements in academia, the arts, business, philanthropy, and public affairs, in line with founders’ vision “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.”

As published today in eLife, a team around IBC2 Group Leader Manuel Kaulich has developed a new technology for generating CRISPR/Cas gene perturbation reagents. They dubbed their innovation as “3Cs”, as gRNA are synthesized as covalently-closed circles.

It enables the fast and, most importantly, cloning-free production of gRNA and shRNA libraries. By this, the 3Cs technology overcomes one of the major caveats of conventional library production.

 IBC2 group leader Christian Münch was recently admitted as a member to the JQ Young Academy. Within the “Science funding” program of JQYA, Christian will now receive financial support for his independent research group until October 2023.

The Münch group is deciphering quality responses upon mitochondrial protein misfolding, a field with very high biomedical impact. Misfolding of mitochondrial proteins occurs e.g. as part of neurodegeneration, and little is known about how cellular response mechanisms contribute to the onset of respective diseases and their progression. The JQYA is an independent academy within Goethe University which foster researchers at the start of their independent careers.