{"id":5276,"date":"2018-07-31T12:44:38","date_gmt":"2018-07-31T10:44:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.p545550.webspaceconfig.de\/uncategorized\/22-millionen-euro-fuer-brenda-schulman\/"},"modified":"2020-07-06T10:14:55","modified_gmt":"2020-07-06T08:14:55","slug":"22-millionen-euro-fuer-brenda-schulman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.izb-online.de\/en\/22-millionen-euro-fuer-brenda-schulman\/","title":{"rendered":"2.2 million euros for Brenda Schulman"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row el_class=”gco-magazine-container”][vc_column el_class=”bildspalte”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner offset=”vc_col-lg-12 vc_col-md-12″][vc_column_text el_class=”gco-magazine–title”]<\/p>\n

2.2 million euros \u00ad for Brenda Schulman<\/h1>\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text el_class=”gco-magazine-lead”]Director at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry receives ERC Advanced Grant \u00adfor her current research[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text el_class=”gco-magazine–post-date”]July 2018[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_single_image image=”5258″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text el_class=”gco-magazine-copyright”]\u00a9 Max-Planck-Institut f\u00fcr Biochemie[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text el_class=”gco-magazine-picture-discription”]Prof. Schulman\u2018s department takes an interdisciplinary approach, combining cell biology, biochemistry, genetics, chemistry, structural biology and biophysics to understand how protein functions are switched on and off by ubiquitin-like proteins and ubiquitin[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner el_class=”gco-magazine-container–copy”][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]Since 2017 Brenda Schulman, Ph.D., heads the department \u201cMolecular Machines and Signaling\u201d at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried near Munich. She has received numerous awards, including the United States Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, and was recently elected to the European Molecular Biology Organization. Now the director at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried received an ERC Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). Over a period of five years, Schulman will \u00adreceive around 2.2 million euros for her research.
\nSchulman did her Bachelor\u2019s degree in Biology at the Johns \u00adHopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA. After her Ph.D. in 1996 at M.I.T. in Cambridge, MA, USA, she spent five years as a postdoc, at Masschusetts General Hospital Boston, MA, USA and at the \u00adMemorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, USA. In 2001, Schulman moved to the St. Jude Children\u2019s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN, USA. There she worked from 2005 and 2017 as Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator before moving to Munich.
\nTogether with her team, Schulman investigates a predominant mechanism regulating cellular proteins. Proteins are the workhorses of cells. Different types of work are done by different types of proteins, ranging from enzymes that digest food to components of muscle. In order for proteins to work properly, they need to be switched on when needed and off when the job is done. A major way that proteins are switched off is by marking them with another small protein called \u201cubiquitin\u201d. Just like there are many different proteins, there are also hundreds of different tiny molecular machines in cells, called E3 ligases, which execute the tagging with ubiquitin. Therefore, it is essential that E3 ligases are themselves turned on and off at the right place and at the right time in cells.[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1583761043671{background-color: #1e73be !important;}” el_class=”redaktionell”][\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner el_class=”gco-magazine–quote”][vc_column_inner][vc_single_image image=”5254″ img_size=”155×155″ alignment=”center” style=”vc_box_circle_2″][vc_column_text el_class=”gco-magazine–picture-discription-blank”]<\/p>\n

Brenda Schulman, Ph.D., \u00adDirector at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry<\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text el_class=”gco-magazine-copyright-blank”]<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Max-Planck-Institut f\u00fcr Biochemie<\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner el_class=”gco-magazine-container–copy” css=”.vc_custom_1591782395570{margin-top: 21px !important;}”][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]The \u201con-switch\u201d for about one-third of all E3 ligases is a small protein that looks like ubiquitin, but is called NEDD8. \u201cAlthough we know the components of many E3 ligases, we don\u2019t know how NEDD8 causes them to assemble from all their parts at the right time and place in a cell, or how NEDD8 causes them to be able to transfer ubiquitin to the proteins that need to be tagged\u201d, says Schulman. Using a multidisciplinary approach, the researchers want to understand everything NEDD8 does to activate E3 ligases, the mode of operation of the activated ubiquitin ligase machineries, and how NEDD8 causes other molecular machines to turn off the ubiquitin-marked proteins.
\n\u201cWe know that without NEDD8, much of the whole machinery of ubiquitination comes to a standstill. Accordingly, it has to perform essential tasks alongside other components\u201c, says Schulman. \u201cUltimately we want to understand this in such detail like in a 3D film. We want to visualize the single steps in three dimensions by using electron microscopic images. We then will put the 3D snapshots in order to understand the dynamic step-by step ways that NEDD8 turns on specific E3 ligases, and then how the activated E3 \u00adligases then turn off specific proteins that need to be shut down\u201d, summarizes Schulman.
\nUltimately, Schulman expects that finding out the numerous ways NEDD8 activates hundreds of distinct but related E3 ligase machineries will explain an extraordinary number of different biological processes NEDD8 and E3 ligases together control, like immunity, proliferation of cancer cells, infections by viruses, when we wake and sleep, and even the growth of plants.[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1583761043671{background-color: #1e73be !important;}” el_class=”redaktionell”][\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner]\n\n

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