Ruth Birner-Gruenberger

Know how: Proteomics [>>]

Ruth Birner-Gruenberger is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Pathology and heads the research unit "Functional Proteomics and Metabolic Pathways" located at the Center of Medical Research, at the Medical University of Graz, Austria. Her scientific experience lies within lipid metabolism, molecular and cell biology, enzymes, protein analytics and proteomics. Her laboratory aims at global analysis of protein function in basic medicine and biotechnology with a special focus on lipid metabolism. They have developed tools for activity-based discovery, profiling and imaging of lipases and other serine hydrolases. Currently they investigate proteins and their modifications with a role in lipid mobilization in health and disease, such as atherosclerosis and cancer, especially by mass spectrometry-based quantitative proteomic methods (such as label-free as well as isotope labeling approaches, gel-based abundance-based protein profiling, PTM analysis, protein and pathway annotation).

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Ingeborg Klymiuk

Know how: Genomics & Transcriptomics, Metagenomics, Microbiomics [>>]

Ingeborg Klymiuk is a PostDoc and Managing Director of the Core Facility Molecular Biology at the Center of Medical Research, at the Medical University of Graz, Austria. Her scientific expertise lies in molecular biology techniques and next generation sequencing. The focus of the Core Facility lies on the Microbiome analysis by 16s sequencing on the MiSeq Illumina platform as well as in the de novo sequencing of small genomes. Implementation of 16s analysis for clinical applications is on high priority of the group but analysis from a variety of sample materials can be processed. The Core Facility is well experienced in gene expression analysis by Affymetrix Array hybridization and qRT-PCR. New Technologies for gene expression will be implemented soon.

Team:

  • Ingeborg Klymiuk, leader
  • Birgit Galle, PostDoc
  • Martina Hatz, technician
  • Theresa Maierhofer, technician
  • Karin Meister, technician
  • Gabriele Michelitsch, technician
  • Karin Wagner, technician

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Harald Koefeler

Know how: Lipidomics & Metabolomics [>>]

The Core Facility for Mass Spectrometry is primarily entangled in the analysis of lipids and metabolites. This is either achieved by large scale ‘omics’ approaches or by highly focused targeted approaches on a few selected compounds. Either way, the underlying technology is always mass spectrometry coupled to chromatography. Besides constant improvement of our lipidomic analysis platform (Fauland et al. J Lipid Res 2011; Hartler et al. Bioinformatics 2011) into fields like microbial lipid analysis, our current analytical emphasis is on development of new methods for rather rare molecular species like LPA, endocannabinoids or phosphorylated glycolysis metabolites. Another important project together with the group of G. Thallinger is the development of automated processing software for molecular lipid species, including the use of MS/MS data. Originally initiated by a European large scale collaborative project called ‘LipidomicNet’, our core expertise at the biological side is on analysis of lipid droplets from murine hepatocytes, murine adipocytes and yeast.

Team:

  • Harald Köfeler, group leader
  • Martin Trötzmüller, senior scientist
  • Birgit Reiter, technician
  • Stefanie Rappold, technician
  • Christine Pein, technician
  • Thomas Züllig, master student

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Gerald Rechberger

Know how: Lipidomics [>>]

Gerald Rechberger is responsible for the MS facility at the Institute of Molecular Biosciences (IMB) at the University of Graz. He supports research groups of the IMB and partner institutions within the research networks SFB Lipotox, as well as external collaborators. The development and application of mass spectrometry analyses occurs in close cooperation and according to the specific requirements of the research groups. Focus of his research is on mass spectrometry in the field of lipidomics. Besides providing a standard repertoire for lipidomic analyses, he strives to improve current technology and develop specific applications. The spectrum of samples investigated ranges from animal tissues and cell culture, body fluids, to model organisms, such as yeast and bacteria. In addition to existing protocols he is developing and improving procedures for qualitative and quantitative detection of various lipid species, including rare components.

Team:

  • Brigitte Spreitzer, technician

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Gerhard Thallinger

Know how: Bioinformatics [>>]

Gerhard Thallinger is a Senior Scientist at the Institute for Genomics and Bioinformatics and Director of the Core Facility Bioinformatics at the Centre of Industrial Biotechnology in Graz, Austria. His scientific experience covers management and analysis of data high-throughput technologies with special emphasis on next generation sequencing and mass spectrometry. Specifically, his group developed tools for the management of proteomics data from LC-MS/MS (MASPECTRAS), the analysis of microbiome sequence data (SnoWMAn), the storage and analysis of qPCR data, and the mining of transcriptome sequences (ClusterControl). Currently, the lab is involved in the comparative analysis of fish genomes, the analysis of the microbiota of the murine gut and the human lung and the assembly and annotation of several microbial genomes. Additionally, a project is underway, where the analysis tool for data from lipid samples (Lipid Data Analyzer) is extended for a more detailed identification of the lipid species.

Team:

  • Gerhard Thallinger, group leader
  • Julia Feichtinger, Postdoc
  • Jürgen Hartler, Postdoc
  • Christoph Fischer, PhD student
  • Bettina Halwachs, PhD student
  • Peter Krempl, PhD student
  • Oana A. Tomescu, PhD student
  • Rene Snajder, staff scientist
  • Tina Todt, apprentice

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Tobias Madl

Know how: Structural biology and NMR-based metabolomics [>>]

Tobias Madl is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at the Medical University of Graz, Austria, and heads the research groups "Structural Biology of Signal Transduction" at the Technical University and Helmholtz Zentrum Munich, Germany. His scientific experience lies within structural biology, biophysics, bioinformatics, molecular biology, and metabolomics. His laboratory aims at understanding the basic molecular mechanisms of signal transduction, its regulation by post-translational modifications and environmental factors and mis-regulation of signal transduction in human diseases and ageing. They have developed tools for integrated structural biology, including structure calculation approaches combining NMR spectroscopy, Small-Angle Scattering and modeling, novel NMR techniques, and novel techniques for de novo structure prediction. Currently they investigate the interplay of signal transduction pathways involved in cell development, ageing, nuclear transport, and RNA biogenesis and their modifications in ageing, health and disease, such as neurodegeneration and cancer, using a combination of biophysical and structural techniques, bioinformatics, and NMR-based metabolomics

Team:

  • Tobias Madl, group leader
  • Benjamin Bourgeois, PostDoc
  • Barbara Hinteregger, PhD student
  • Gesa Richter, PhD student
  • Sarah Stryeck, PhD student
  • Therese Macher, technician
  • Christopher Trummler, technician
  • Denise Prietl, apprentice

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Ulrich Stelzl

Know how: Network Biology [>>]

Ulrich Stelzl is Professor at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Graz. The group is focusing on the generation and analysis of molecular interaction networks with the aim to understand the dynamics of molecular networks underlying cellular processes related to human disease. Experimental functional genomics techniques, e.g. HTP Y2H screening, are utilized in combination with biochemical, cell biological and computational methods. We are working on several aspects of protein-protein interaction (PPI) research, including the generation of accurate, high coverage PPI networks, condition dependent protein-protein interaction studies, e.g. the analyses of phosphorylation dependent interaction networks and integrative approaches to analyze PPI network dynamics. Molecular network approaches are about to strongly shape our view on how specificity is achieved in cellular signal transduction and post-transcriptional regulation and may ultimately reveal the molecular changes in cellular processes that occur in complex human diseases such as cancer.

Team:

  • Ulrich Stelzl, group leader
  • Christian Heine, post doc
  • Evelyne Jany-Luig, staff

Projects:

  • to be announced soon

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Martin Wagner

Know how: Cistromics, Transcriptomics and Metabolism [>>]

Martin Wagner is an Associate Professor at the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the Medical University Graz, Austria, and heads the research group “Translational Nuclear Receptor Research in Liver Metabolism”. His scientific experience lies within genomics and metabolism, in particular gene regulation by nuclear receptors in human liver diseases, which is also the scientific focus of his research unit. Methodologically, his lab works primarily on human tissue samples and human cell line systems and experiments include genetically and pharmacological gain/loss of function assays. They use various next generation sequencing / NGS based –omics tools, such as cistromics, transcriptomics, epigenomics and metabolomics for unbiased and integrative approaches. The overall aim of his research is to define genome-wide binding profiles of metabolically active nuclear receptors in physiological, pathophysiological and pharmacologically-modified conditions in the human background and to deduce novel potentially therapeutically relevant approaches.

Team:

  • Martin Wagner, group leader
  • Katrin Panzitt, PostDoc
  • Nikolaus Schreiber, MD student

Projects:

  • FWF: FXR genomics in NAFLD
  • ÖGGH: Chromatinveränderungen durch FXR in NAFLD
  • ÖNB: Autophagy in Cholestasis and Modulation by Nuclear Receptors

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Karl Kashofer

Know how: Translational Genome Analysis [>>]