News

Fluorine-13C Labeling

Our manuscript on [13C/2H] Fluorophenylalanine labeling went online in J Biomol NMR on March 21st and can be accessed as an online article at https://rdcu.be/dBW7L

DosChem Retreat 2024 in Röjtökmuzsaj

Together with the Böttcher Group we organized the DosChem retreat 2024 in Szedonia Castle (13-15.3.2024; Hungary). We enjoyed three days of science with 11 student talks, 36 posters presentations and our guest speakers with highly interesting contributions from their corresponding research fields. Darja Rohden was awarded the best student talk by the participating students and PIs. Congratulations!

13th Austrian Peptide Symposium

Our group attended the 13th Austrian Peptide Symposium and presented our research progress on 5 posters! We had a great time meeting our colleagues from the peptide research community and enjoyed a very dense program with many interesting talks. And of course there is no meeting without awards - Darja received the prize for best poster presentation!

Selective Methine Labeling to Probe Protein-Ligand Interactions

Precise information regarding the interaction between proteins and ligands at molecular resolution is crucial for effectively guiding the optimization process from initial hits to lead compounds in early stages of drug development. Giorgia Toscano introduced a novel aliphatic side chain isotope-labeling scheme to directly probe interactions between ligands and aliphatic sidechains using NMR techniques. Together with Theresa Höfurthner, Robert Konrat and our collaborators of the Christian Doppler Lab for High Content Structural Biology and Biotechnology, we demonstrated the applicability of this method by analyzing 1H chemical shift perturbation resulting from CH-π interaction of Hβ-Val and Hγ-Leu as CH donors with corresponding ligand aromatic moieties as π acceptors. Our studies were published in ChemBioChem on Jan 31st 2024.

Synthesis and application of a novel Isoleucine methylene 13C precursor

We developed a novel synthetic route to a methylene 13C isoleucine precursor. Giorgia Toscano synthesized special isotope patterns of alpha-ketobutyrate starting from 13C-iodomethane and D2O. Together with Theresa Höfurthner and our team from the Christian Doppler Laboratory for high-content structural biology and biotechnology, the resulting new labeling strategy was applied to determine protein dynamics and interaction by recording triple quantum HTQC spectra. Our studies were published in the Journal of Biomolecular NMR on October 11th 2023.

Team News

Sarah Kratzwald finished her Master project with a defence at the TU Vienna on October 2nd 2023! Her thesis entitled Design and Synthesis of Isotope-Labeled Amino Acids and Precursors for Protein NMR Characterization deals with elegant ways of histidine isotope labeling, as well as producing 13C Phosphotyrosine building blocks. Congratulations Sarah!

Christian Doppler Lab of high-content structural biology and biotechnology meeting in Rabenstein an der Pielach

The members of the CD-Lab met in Rabenstein from September 28th-29th 2023 to discuss the results and findings of the wonderful collaboration between the Department of Structural Biology, Institute of Organic Chemistry (both University of Vienna) and Boehringer-Ingelheim.

Team News

Alisa Wimmer joined our Team on September 1st 2023 in the Organic Synthesis Lab to do her Master's project. Alisa is working in the company Mag-Lab, where she is an important factor to push the frontiers of isotope labeling further.

Welcome Alisa!

Team News

Katharina Maier finished her Bachelor's thesis in our group. Congratulations!

"Staplelabel" E.coli lysate for cell-free NMR sample preparation

The group of Frank Bernhard from the Goethe University in Frankfurt introduced novel lysates of E.coli mutants to reduce isotope scrambling in cell-free expression systems. In a collaboration with the Lichtenecker group new strategies for selective methyl labeling were explored. Defined conversion of alpha-keto precursors to Leu and Val by recombinant aminotransferases was exemplified in the production of the labeled membrane protein proteorhodopsin. This study was published on June 13th 2023 in the Journal of Biomolecular NMR.

Science retreat with the Schanda group (ISTA) in Palfau

Together with the group of our collaboration partner Paul Schanda from the ISTA, we spent three days (23.-25.08.2023) of interesting scientific discussions, great presentations and a lot of fun. The wonderful landscape of the Salza valley set the stage for a memorable rafting trip.

UniVie Connect: Academic and Pharma Research

We participated in the UniVie Connect: Academic and Pharma Research event on June 30th 2023 and learned a lot about companies, funding opportunities and University-industry cooperations. In addition to that, we met company representatives and other academic researchers in interesting round table discussions.

Faculty football tournament

Football tournament on the 26th of June at the DSV Fortuna pitch! Fantastic football with wonderful organization but one of these days when some people have to realize that they're not 20 anymore...

 

 

Team News

Katharina Maier joined the team for her bachelor thesis in May 2023. She works on new methods to install 13C-fluorine combinations in target proteins.

Inaugural Biochemistry Symposium

We visited the new Instutute of Biochemistry at JKU Linz (May 23rd and 24th) to celebrate the Inaugural Biochemistry Symposium and its head Prof. Frans Mulder. Fifteen renowned international scientists presented their work on Biomolecular structure and dynamics. A great event with many interesting discussions!

Doctoral School in Chemistry

The group attended the DosChem retreat 2023 in Fürstenfeld March 22-24. Giorgia introduced her work in a talk and Darja contributed a poster presentation. With Clemens Decristoforo (Uni Innsbruck), Pablo Rivera Fuentes (Uni Zürich) and Paolo Melchiorre (Uni Bologna) we enjoyed three guest speakers in addition to all the great contributions from our PhD students.

11th Austrian Peptide Symposium

We joined the 11th Austrian Peptide Symposium, which took place at the old Vienna general hospital on Dec. 1st 2022. Sarah presented her poster entitled "Novel isotopologues of amino acids and amino acid precursors for protein applications" and Roman gave a short oral contribution on the topic of "The prolific synergy of selective protein labelingand biomolecular NMR spectroscopy".

NMR Symposium

Robert Konrat's 60th - From Dynamics to Disorder and Beyond

From the 28th to the 29th of September 2022, the Biomolecular NMR community celebrated the 60th birthday of Robert Konrat with several talks by Robert's former students and collaboration partners. The event also provided a stimulating environment for younger scientists to present their work and consequently Darja, Giorgia and Sarah showed their recent results on scientific posters.

Conference participation

Österreichische Chemietage

Our group participated in the Conference of the Austrian Chemical Society at the Technical University of Vienna.

Conference participation

Student Symposium of the Vienna Chemistry Doctoral School

The PhD students of our faculty showed their recent work at the 2nd DosChem International Student Symposium. Giorgia and Darja presented posters and gave insights into their projects in vivid discussions with their peer students.

Team News

Cherilyn Cikan

did a great job and defended her Master project entitled "Synthesis of stable heavy isotope containing small molecules" on the 05.09.2022. Congratulations!

Team News

Darja Rohden

joined our team in July 2022. Darja obtained her masters degree in the group of Prof. Davide Bonifazi and is now part of the Allospace program. Within the scope of her PhD project, Darja will elucidate the allosteric network of target proteins on an atomic resolution. She will combine Organic Chemistry with solid state protein NMR spectroscopy, which will be performed in the group of Paul Schanda at the ISTA.

Team News

Benjamin Nagl

defended his Master project entitled "Novel Compounds to Investigate Protein Interaction - Synthesis of Novel Isoleucine and Fluortryptophan Precursors" successfully on the 22.03.2022. Congratulations!

Funding

The project "Allospace" is funded by the FWF-ANR (project I5812).

Together with collaboration partners from France (D. Madern - CNRS; G. Santoni - ESRF; C. Brochier-Armanet - Univ. Lyon; F. Sterpone - CNRS; C. Barette - CEA) and Austria (P. Schanda - ISTA) we investigate the mechanisms and evolutionary origin of enzymatic allostery.

Teaching

We returned to the lecture halls

After a long time of Covid restrictions and many online courses, we are back at the lecture halls with four courses in SS2022:

270032 VO Organic Chemistry for Highschool Teachers - -Chemistry

270055 SE Actual Problems in Bioorganic Chemistry

270071 VO Introduction into carbohydrates - Introduction into carbohydrate chemistry and biological chemistry

270084 VO Selected topics in bioorganic chemistry

Team News

Giorgia Toscano

joined our team in Nov. 2021. Giorgia works at the interface of Organic Chemistry and Structural Biology within the Christian Doppler Laboratory for knowledge-based structural biology and biotechnology. In April 2022, Giorgia was admitted to the Vienna Doctoral School in Chemistry.

Funding

We are now part of the Christian Doppler Laboratory for knowledge-based structural biology and biotechnology

Together with our partner Prof. Robert Konrat (Univ. Vienna) and our industry collaborator Boeringer-Ingelheim, we investigate novel ways to probe the interaction of biomolecules using NMR techniques. The outcome of this project will lead to new therapeutic methods to treat diseases like cancer, autoimmune disorders or neuropathological conditions. 

Industry Cooperation

Our collaboration with LOBA Austria

was successfully completed by Cherilyn Cikan. Cherilyn synthesized a double 15N-labelled aromatic compound using nitrogen-15 Ammonium chloride and nitrogen 15-Nitric acid.

Research

Pi by NMR

In a collaboration with the group of Prof. Robert Konrat (Max-Perutz Labs) and Boeringer-Ingelheim a method to quantify CH-Pi interactions was established by combining 13C/1H NMR and selective aromatic residue isotope labeling. Click here for more information or visit the original paper in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. (open access).

Industry Cooperation

We successfully completed our collaboration project with the company Calyxha.

Within the scope of this project we investigated different ways of synthesizing and characterizing various calixarenes. This compound family not only enthralls with fascinating structural properties, but also promising biomolecular interaction.