From small molecules to complex organelles

Latest News

October 25, 2024 Time for lunch During a process called aggrephagy, aggregated proteins are marked with ubiquitin and clustered into molecular condensates, which are then degraded with the help of the autophagic machinery. Now published in EMBO Journal, the Martens group from Max Perutz Labs reveals how the cargo receptor protein TAX1BP1 facilitates the switch from cargo collection to autophagosome formation. Read more →
October 24, 2024 Controlling condensation by phosphorylation Condensate formation as an organizing principle is rapidly gaining traction in many biological processes. However, the mechanisms by which the size, composition and subcellular localization of these condensates are regulated are largely unknown. The Karagöz lab (Max Perutz Labs) has revealed that phosphorylation of the RNA-binding protein IGF2BP1 impacts the biogenesis, size and number of stress granules. Read more →
October 4, 2024 FWF Cluster of Excellence Grant awarded to consortium with participation from Noelia Urbán The Austrian Science Fund (FWF) has awarded a Cluster of Excellence Grant to “Neuronal Circuits in Health and Disease”, an interdisciplinary project co-coordinated by Noelia Urbán at IMBA. Read more →

About the Program

Targeted Protein Degradation: From small molecules to complex organelles

Our Special Research Program is a collaborative research platform to unravel how proteins are targeted for degradation. We focus on the two major cellular proteolytic pathways, the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) and autophagy, and the crosstalk between them in the cytoplasm and in the nucleus. Furthermore, we investigate how small molecules can be used to chemically reprogram the degradation systems, enabling the targeted proteolysis of selected proteins in a spatially and temporally controlled manner …

Selected Publications

2024 Tau fibrils evade autophagy by excessive p62 coating and TAX1BP1 exclusion Science Advances Ferrari L, Bauer B, Qiu Y, Schuschnig M, Klotz S, Anrather D, Juretschke T, Beli P, Gelpi E, Martens S Go to publication →
2024 Large-scale chemoproteomics expedites ligand discovery and predicts ligand behavior in cells Science Offensperger F, Tin G, Duran-Frigola M, Hahn E, Dobner S, Ende CWA, Strohbach JW, Rukavina A, Brennsteiner V, Ogilvie K, Marella N, Kladnik K, Ciuffa R, Majmudar JD, Field SD, Bensimon A, Ferrari L, Ferrada E, Ng A, Zhang Z, Degliesposti G, Boeszoermenyi A, Martens S, Stanton R, Müller AC, Hannich JT, Hepworth D, Superti-Furga G, Kubicek S, Schenone M, Winter GE Go to publication →
2023 Structural basis of how the BIRC6/SMAC complex regulates apoptosis and autophagy Science Ehrmann JF, Grabarczyk DB, Heinke M, Deszcz L, Kurzbauer R, Hudecz O, Shulkina A, Gogova R, Meinhart A, Versteeg GA, Clausen T Go to publication →

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