The Plückthun Lab

About Us

We study the creation of new proteins and protein variants. The purpose of this work is to use such engineered proteins to enable research and applications which have been very difficult or even impossible so far. Examples of our endeavors are the creation of new engineered binding proteins for applications in biotechnology, to inhibit other proteins or to kill tumor cells in therapy, or the stabilization of proteins so that they can be studied structurally and biophysically, such as G-protein-coupled receptors evolved to high stability and expression levels for drug screening and structural studies.

One of our main areas of interest have been novel scaffolds for selective binding (e.g. the DARPin technology we have developed), or other repeat proteins such as the Armadillo Repeat Proteins. Because of the complexity of these tasks, this research requires a highly interdisciplinary approach, combining detailed biophysical studies, computer modeling and advanced molecular biology, especially directed evolution. In most projects also structure determination is needed by crystallography carried out in the research group, or in collaboration, by NMR or cryo electron tomography.

Some projects also bridge protein engineering with applications, in cell biology or, in the case of tumor targeting testing in animal models.