The Special Research Program (SFB) in ‘Targeted Protein Degradation’ has been approved for a second funding period of another 4 years by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). The program is coordinated by Sascha Martens at the Max Perutz Labs, and comprises scientists from the GMI – including Silvia Ramundo and Yasin Dagdas – the Max Perutz Labs, University of Vienna, IMP, IMBA and CeMM in Vienna and the Max Delbrück Center in Berlin, joining forces to unravel mechanisms of targeted protein degradation.

In all organisms, the controlled degradation of proteins is essential for cellular function and fitness, yet it is not fully understood. The thirteen research groups united in the SFB “Targeted Protein Degradation” aim to uncover the molecular mechanisms of cellular proteolytic pathways, among them the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) and autophagy.

In the SFB’s first funding period, achievements included a better understanding of how giant E3 ubiquitin ligases, notorious for the challenges they present for their study due to their large size, recognize their substrates. The consortium also revealed new players in the subcellular localization of the UPS to the nucleus and acquired insights into the mechanisms by which the autophagy machinery identifies its targets. Furthermore, scientists from the SFB discovered new modalities for the action of molecular glues in reprograming E3 ligases for the inducible degradation of proteins.

The second funding period will build on these discoveries, with the major focus lying on the targeted degradation of proteins by the UPS and autophagy in the cytoplasm and the nucleus. However, the consortium will expand research to other cell organelles and widen the portfolio of techniques used to include in vivo cross-linking and limited proteolysis mass spectrometry.

The SFB in its second funding period includes the research groups of Yasin Dagdas and Silvia Ramundo at the GMI, Sascha Martens, Andreas Bachmair, Elif Karagöz, Alwin Köhler, and Gijs Versteeg at the Max Perutz Labs, Tim Clausen and David Haselbach at the IMP, Noelia Urbán at the IMBA, Georg Winter at CeMM, Christian Becker at the University of Vienna as well as Ilaria Piazza at the Max Delbrück Center in Berlin. The total funding for the 8-year duration of the project amounts to €11 million.

Read more about the SFB here.