From small molecules to complex organelles

Latest News

February 7, 2025 Balancing the pressure: How plant cells protect their vacuoles Water-filled vacuoles provide the inner pressure plant cells need for structural support. However, damage to the plant’s cell wall risks vacuole rupture and cell death. The Dagdas group at the GMI discovered a novel quality control mechanism that protects the vacuole’s integrity upon cell wall damage. Read more →
February 6, 2025 Master’s Thesis Opportunity in Parkinson’s Research The Martens Lab at the Max Perutz Labs is offering a Master’s position to study how Parkinson’s disease aggregates affect the human brain. We provide state-of-the art facilities and a collaborative, international environment. We are curiosity-driven researchers who are not limited to specific techniques… Read more →
January 28, 2025 Elif Karagöz promoted to tenured professor Elif Karagöz has been a group leader at the Max Perutz Labs since 2019, where she studies the mechanisms of protein quality control in cells. Now she has been promoted to tenured professor. 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 →

Show all Publications