Ulrike Gaul is an internationally leading development biologist whose work on the fruit fly drosophila has contributed enormously to our understanding of gene regulation during organismic development and the role of glial cells in the nervous system. Her laboratory has discovered many new genes that control the formation of the blood-brain barrier and the efficient elimination of dying neurons by glia. In recent years, Gaul has been increasingly interested in how to decrypt and make a quantitative description of the complex genetic networks underlying embryonic pattern formation. Her work on regulating gene transcription and translation in early development, which has often involved working with physicists and bioinformaticians, is pioneering for linking organismic biology with the quantitative analysis of systems biology. Gaul will use the award money associated with the Humboldt professorship to establish a new research focus in molecular systems biology at the Gene Center of CIPSM. This research focus will complement the existing strengths of the Gene Center. The newly elected laureate is exhilarated about the distinction. "Combined with this very attractive offer from LMU and CIPSM, the Humboldt professorship will give me working conditions that are very hard to find in the US.” But it is not just the financial backing that incites her to move to Germany. “LMU and Munich are an excellent environment for my work,” says Gaul. “I really like the hands-on, collegial spirit everyone has in Munich, the cosmopolitan, fun-loving character of the city and the general spirit of optimism you feel in German science.”

About Systems Biology

Systems biology is based to genome and proteome research, and will play a pivotal role in the biosciences in the future. The aim of this interdisciplinary research field is not only to create a catalogue of all molecules participating in specific cellular processes but also, and above all, to understand and quantify the interplay of molecules in complex networks. One aim is to develop models for making predictions of the behavior of living cells. By closely combining biochemical, genomic and mathematical methods, the researchers at the Gene Center in Munich intend to explain the principles of gene regulation in higher cells and organisms, which will give fresh impetus to cancer and dementia research as well as the development of stem cell therapies. The head of the Gene Center, Professor Patrick Cramer, is especially delighted that, with Ulrike Gaul, LMU has gained a top international researcher for the Gene Center and the national cluster of excellence for protein sciences CIPSM: “The appointment of Ulrike Gaul is our fifth appointment from the US since 2001.“ The Humboldt professorship is a special distinction for Gaul, but also for her future colleagues here in Munich: “It is very important," says Cramer, “to recruit only the very best. I am very grateful for everyone who helped make this appointment happen. Appointing Gaul is a central aspect of our strategy for expanding into the future field of systems biology and, with it, for further increasing the international visibility and scientific capacity of the Gene Center and the CIPSM cluster of excellence. We can once again assert our leading role in establishing innovative biological research within Europe.”

Vita Professor Ulrike Gaul

Professor Ulrike Gaul studied biochemistry and physics in Tübingen, and received her doctorate in 1988 at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology under Professor Herbert Jäckle. After research visits to the University of Washington and University of California in Berkeley, she has been a professor since 1993 at Rockefeller University in New York, one of the world’s leading biomedical research centers. Gaul plans to move with her group to the Gene Center of CIPSM in the spring of 2009.

Alexander von Humboldt Professorships

The most valuable international award for research in Germany is being granted by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (www.humboldt-foundation.de) globally leading academics of all disciplines working abroad. The award is valued at up to five million EUR and is designed to allow the winners to spend five years working on ground-breaking research at German universities. The award ceremony will take place in Berlin in May 2009.

“I am delighted that we have been able to nominate outstanding candidates for the award. The Alexander von Humboldt Professorship is a strong argument for convincing cutting-edge researchers from all over the world to come to Germany,” Federal Minister of Research, Dr. Annette Schavan, commented in Berlin on Wednesday. “We are making an important contribution to maintaining a permanent position for Germany in the top international league,” Schavan said.

Searching for the Builder of the Bridge from Gene to Protein

The European Research Council (ERC) promotes pioneering basic research by supporting excellent and unusually creative scientists. CIPSM-Junior-Group Leader Dr. Katja Sträßer from the Gene Center at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) München successfully  took part in the “ERC Starting Grant Scheme”, a new EU program for junior scientists. Dr. Sträßer is one of only 300 applicants whose projects were selected from among 10,000 project proposals throughout Europe. Sträßer will now receive about one million Euros over the next five years. The biologist’s research elucidates the mechanisms of gene expression or, in other words, the conversion of genetic information into proteins. Genes are sections of DNA, the molecule that governs heredity and contains the “blueprint” for building proteins. “What interests me most is how the individual steps of the gene expression are coupled,” explains Sträßer, “The reason being that this explains how the conversion of genetic information is controlled and regulated.” In a past project she was able to demonstrate that the Ctk1 protein plays a role during different temporally as well as spatially separated phases of gene expression. In the newly funded project she therefore intends to examine the function of this molecule more closely and identify other factors that connect different steps of gene expression. The individual steps of gene expression are already well understood. The coupling of these different steps, however, is a completely new mechanism for regulation – and also occurs in humans.

In higher organisms, gene expression entails a variety of different steps: First, during transcription the genetic information is copied into an RNA molecule. RNA is a nucleic acid chemically similar to DNA. This messenger RNA or mRNA is then processed, that is chemically altered, and packaged by different proteins in a complex that is then exported out of the nucleus. Within the cell interior or cytoplasm, the genetic information contained within the mRNA is finally converted into a protein during translation. “These processes, which are for the most part temporally and spatially separated, are already well understood,” explains Sträßer. “Only in recent years, it has been shown that some of these processes do not operate independently of each other but are interconnected.” This is especially true for processes that take place in the nucleus or in cytoplasm. The main objective of the newly funded project is to demonstrate a coupling of spatially separate processes or, more specifically, the coupling of  transcription to translation.”

A first step in this direction is already taken: Sträßer recently demonstrated that one well-known protein mediates such a wide-ranging coupling. The Ctk1 protein in yeast ensures that transcription is not prematurely terminated and also plays an important role in the processing of the mRNA. “We demonstrated that Ctk1 interacts with the TREX complex, which couples transcription with the nuclear export of the mRNA,” reports the biologist. “Our new results show that Ctk1 is also important for efficient translation or, in other words, for the synthesis of proteins in the cytoplasm. It is highly likely that the human counterpart of Ctk1, namely the CDK9 protein, also performs this very surprising function. We suspect that Ctk1 binds to the mRNA after the mRNA is processed and is transported to the cytoplasm along with the mRNA where it can then enhance translation.” This protein would therefore be one of the first examples of a connection between gene expression processes taking place in the nucleus and the cytoplasm.

One objective of the planned project is therefore a detailed analysis of the various functions of Ctk1. Furthermore, additional factors with a similarly broad range of functions in gene expression shall be identified. Sträßer is also interested in ribosomes, large complexes made up of proteins and nucleic acids. Ribosomes are responsible for the synthesis of the encoded proteins using mRNAs as a template. “We want to examine how and which ribosomal proteins are chemically modified and which factors participate in this process,” explains Sträßer. “These modifications are important for the regulation of many cellular processes. Yet to date very little is known about the modification of ribosomes, which are so important for protein synthesis. This makes the modifications alone a very exciting object to study. In addition, these modifications could also be important for the coupling of translation with transcription. Finally, we will examine whether our results obtained with the yeast S. cerevisiae as a model system also hold true for mammal cells. Thus, we aim to identify mechanisms that connect gene expression processes in nucleus and cytoplasm in all higher organisms.”

Since January 2003, Dr. Katja Sträßer is the head of an independent research group at the Gene Center at LMU Munich. The 36-year-old biotechnologist received the prestigious EMBO Young Investigator Award in 2004 and the “Habilitation” Prize of the Dr. Klaus Römer Endowment at the LMU Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in 2007. The ERC's decision was solely based on the  scientific excellence of the applicant and the proposed project. Projects eligible for funding must be highly innovative – risky but, when successful, opening new and important scientific horizons. The project is expected to involve cooperations as well as a high degree of interdisciplinarity. This EU program for the advancement of basic research was established in 2007.