Pharmaceutical Biotechnology

The professorship for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology has been established 2011 as a Joint Professorship between the Natural and Medical Sciences Institute at the University of Tuebingen (NMI) located in Reutlingen and the Department of Pharmacy and Biochemistry of the University of Tuebingen with the aim to transfer knowledge gained in biological basic research into technical applications and R&D.

The research is focused on the development of novel recombinant binding molecules and cellular models for biomedical research and the development of pharmaceutical compounds.

Fig. 1: SARS-CoV-2 RBD in complex with specific Nanobodies — SARS-CoV-2 spike receptor binding domain (RBD, grey) in complex with two specific Nanobodies (blue & red). For further information see Wagner et al. 2021, doi: 10.15252

Selection of current research topics (University of Tuebingen / NMI):

Predictive diagnosis of immune-associated diseases. Nanobodies for in vivo imaging of cellular immune targets (in collaboration with Prof. Bernd Pichler, WSIC)
Nano- and Chromobodies for structural and functional analysis of the mitochondrial outer membrane (MOM) associated components Miro1, Milton/TRAK and Drp1 (in collaboration with the members of MOMbrane)
Generation of Nanobody-modified Biosensors for Targeted Visualization of Potassium Channels (in collaboration with Prof. Robert Lukowski, Pharmacology, University of Tuebingen)
Development and application of SARS-CoV-2 specific nanobodies