A new centre for protein research is to be founded at the Technischen Universität Munich (TUM) for 40 million euros. The new building on the Garching campus will be funded by the Federal and Bavarian government. Now, the Technische Universität Munich is establishing the TUM Centre for Functional Protein Assemblies (CPA), where an interdisciplinary team at the university will look more closely at the functions and mechanisms of proteins. Covering an area of almost 4,000 square metres, the new centre will be built on the university campus in Garching.
The Joint Science Conference (Gemeinsame Wissenschaftskonferenz (GWK)) has now announced that the German Federal Government and the State of Bavaria will fund the new CPA building to the tune of 40 million euros. In its assessment, the committee cited this particularly close-knit interplay of the various scientific disciplines and engineering services, as well as the planned transfer of research findings to medical applications. The TUM is already active in the Cluster of Excellence “Center for Integrated Protein Science Munich (CIPSM)” within the framework of protein research. At the CPA, the TUM will unite its competences in protein chemistry, structural elucidation, chemical biology, single-molecule biophysics, cellular biophysics, DNA nanotechnology, molecular dynamics simulation, and bioengineering in order to fully exploit the methodological and technological potentials available.
The research will focus on the protein interactions in conjunction with protein-folding processes, the formation of structures in the cytoskeletal system, and active-substance pathways. The aim of this approach is to shed light on the complexity of biological systems, identify their molecular and supramolecular mechanisms of action, and develop medical applications on this basis. The Munich researchers will soon be able to draw on cutting-edge imaging technology such as the 1.2-GHz spectrometer, which will also be available in the also newly built Magnetic Resonance Center on the Garching campus.
Source: TU Munich, www.tum.de
Picture: © H. Hahne, Technische Universität München, showing an illustration of human proteom research, with permission