Impaired interaction of metabolic pathways plays a significant role in disease pathogenesis. Measurement of pathway metabolites and metabolite fluxes completed by mathematical modelling identifies genetic determinants and modifiers such as the microbiome or antibiotics. “Thinking in metabolic networks“ has also become essential for the understanding of monogenic metabolic diseases.
Oliver Einsle 
Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy – Institute of Biochemistry
RESEARCH: Structure and Function of Metabolic Enzymes, , Refactoring of Metabolic Pathways Enzymology, Bioinorganic Chemistry, Structural Biology, Assembly and Biogenesis of Enzymes and Enzyme Complexes
METHODS: Microbiology, Oxic and Anoxic Protein Biochemistry, UV/vis Spectroscopy, EPR Spectroscopy, RT-PCR, Isothermal Titration Calorimetry, Analytical Size-Exclusion Chromatography, Molecular Modelling, Cryo-EM, X-ray Crystallography
TECHNOLOGIES: EPR Sprectrometer (Bruker ElexSys 500), X-ray diffractometer (Rigaku), Cryo-EM (Thermo Fisher)
Ute Spiekerkötter
Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center – Department of General Pediatrics, Adolescent Medicine and Neonatology
RESEARCH: Inborn errors of metabolism, mitochondrial fatty acid oxidation disorders, risk and severity profiling, pathophysiology and metabolic switches, organ-specific compensation and environmental modifiers, new therapies
METHODS: Molecular and biochemical phenotyping, functional genomics, targeted metabolomics (disease-specific, pathway-specific, multi-pathway), metabolite panels and metabolic labelling, cell and mouse models, clinical studies, experimental research
TECHNOLOGIES: MetaboCF (DFG listed, RI_00507); Advanced biochemical diagnostic unit: UHPLC Exion/Triple Quadrupole Sciex 5500+ MS, Acquity UPLC/Waters Quattro Premier Triple Quadrupole MS, HPLC Waters 2695 with DAD, Biochrom 30 and 30+ Amino Acid Analyzers, Agilent GC-MS systems, UV-Vis detectors and plate readers
Jennifer Andexer
Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy – Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences
RESEARCH: Biomimetic Metabolic Pathways, Metabolic Engineering, Multi-enzyme cascades, Biocatalysis, Enzyme Catalysis
METHODS: Genetic Manipulation of Metabolism, Heterologous Expression, Analysis via HPLC and LC-MS
TECHNOLOGIES: HPLC (DAD & ELSD)
Henning Jessen
Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy – Institute of Organic Chemistry
RESEARCH: Phosphate Homeostasis, Stringent Response, Phosphorylated Metabolites, Metabolic Messengers, Polyphosphate, Magic Spot Nucleotides, Dinucleoside Polyphosphates, Inositol phosphates and pyrophosphates, Antibiotics
METHODS: Chemical Synthesis, Capillary Electrophoresis and HPLC Mass Spectrometry, Stable Isotope Labeling, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Cell Culture
TECHNOLOGIES: CE-MS (Agilent) QQQ, CE-MS (Agilent) QTof, Bruker Avance 400 MHz with cryoprobe
Clemens Kreutz
Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center – Institute of Medical Biometry and Statistics (IMBI), Methods of Systems Biomedicine (MSB)
RESEARCH: Mathematical Modelling, Metabolic Signaling Networks, Link to Microbiome, Link to Proteome, Methods for Single Cell Analyses
METHODS: Mathematical Models, Benchmarking and Optimal Selection of Computational Methods, Development of Novel Analysis Approaches
TECHNOLOGIES: High Performance Computing
Susana Andrade
Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy – Institute for Biochemistry
RESEARCH: Metabolite signaling, Metabolite transport, Structure and function of Proteins, Channels, Transporters, Receptors, (Metallo-) Enzymes, Transport mechanisms, Receptor activation, Signal transduction, Protein-protein interaction
METHODS: Protein engineering and isolation, Affinity and size-exclusion chromatography, Molecular Biology, X-ray crystallography, cryo-EM, Proteoliposomes, Lipids, Detergents, Nanoparticles, SSM-/PLB-Electrophysiology, Microscale thermophoresis, Stopped-flow kinetics
TECHNOLOGIES: Planar Lipid Bilayer Electrophysiology (Warner Instr.), Solid-Supported Membrane Electrophysiology (Nanion Tech.), SX-20 Stopped Flow Spectrometer (Applied Photophysics)
Luciana Hannibal
Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center – Department of General Pediatrics, Adolescent Medicine and Neonatology, MetaboCF Core Facility
RESEARCH: Inborn errors of metabolism, Genetic modifiers of metabolism, Sulfur-metabolism, Redox signalling, Cofactor enzymology and trafficking, Nutrition, Nutritional and Genetic deficiencies of vitamin B12, multiorgan-metabolic integration
METHODS: Metabolic labeling in cell culture, Targeted metabolomic profiling by mass spectrometry, Characterization of pathogenic protein variants, Protein-cofactor interactions, Rapid kinetics by stopped-flow, Biomarker discovery and standardization
TECHNOLOGIES: UHPLC Nexera X2/QTRAP Sciex 6500+ MS, HPLC -TSQ Vantage Triple Quadrupole MS, GC-MS system (7890 GC system coupled to a 5975C mass spectrometer, Agilent), Stopped-Flow with double mixer and dual UV-Vis/Fluorescence detection
Andreas Bechthold
Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy – Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Pharmaceutical Biology and Biotechnology
RESEARCH: Metabolism, metabolism signaling, Natural products, antibiotics, biosynthesis of natural products, regulation, cyclic di-GMP, cofactor dependent enzymes, transport of natural products, oxygenases, glycoyltrasnferases, microorganisms in insects
METHODS: Genetic Manipulation of Metabolism, Small Molecule Structure elucidation, Characterization of Natural Products by MS and NMR, Protein structure elucidation, Cryo-EM
TECHNOLOGIES: Triple-Stage-Quadrupol-Massenspektrometer 40-500 + UnliMate 3000 Binäres HPLC-System + DAD (Thermo)
Anna Köttgen
Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center – Institute of Genetic Epidemiology
RESEARCH: Genetic determinants of Metabolite Levels, Metabolite Transport Proteins, Metabolite handling in Kidney, Inborn Errors of Metabolism, Complex metabolic Diseases, Pharmaco-metabolomics
METHODS: Population-scale genetic screens, whole-exome sequencing, multi-Omics data integration (e.g., metabolomics and genomics), non-targeted metabolomics by MS, statistical data analysis of (non-)targeted MS and NMR metabolomics, pathway analysis
