Profile

At the interface between organic chemistry and biology the research of the laboratory aaddresses the de novo or structure-based design and synthesis of bioactive compounds such as peptides and peptidomimetics as well as of small molecules as selective and potent inhibitors of selected serine-, cysteine-, aspartic acid- and metalloproteinases. For the study of basic processes of protein folding and molecular recognition biomimetic molecules containing photoresponsive elements are constructed which allow for light induced conformational transitions that serve for a better insight into the ultrafast events by time-resolved spectroscopy. For the same purpose protein engineering with non-natural amino acids is performed to affect in target-oriented manner properties of native proteins and to characterize structural elements governing their conformational stability. To realize such challenging tasks a continuous development of new and improvement of established synthetic procedures is required. In addition the laboratory assists other research groups with synthetic peptides and offers help with spectroscopy.