Research on proteins and their mechanisms of action, research on how proteins function in a cell, with a special interest on functional intrinsic disorder and dynamics.
Understand how biological molecular machines work, understanding how numerous factors alter the protein conformation and regulate the ion transport , determining the high-resolution structures of ryanodine receptors in multiple functional states, development of the method of single particle cryo-EM.
At the VIB-VUB Center for Structural Biology (CSB), we study the structure and dynamics of macromolecular complexes in health and disease to explain their mode of action. We integrate our structural biology work with genetic and cellular studies, aiming to bridge molecular and cellular resolution. We excel in translating our discoveries into biotechnological and medical applications.
Identifying redox-sensitive proteins and to define the architecture and conformational flexibility of redox-relay signaling complexes, understanding the crosstalk between redox and metabolite signaling, we develop new tools for sensing subcellular metabolite flux.
Exploiting nanobodies for drug discovery on difficult targets like GPCRs and on the engineering of nanobodies to be used in single particle cryo-EM and OMICs applications.
Research on the phenomenon of the structural disorder of proteins, understanding the role of structural disorder in liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) of proteins in cell physiology and disease, with a primary focus on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Developing computational protein design and high-throughput experimental methods to generate new proteins with properties not seen in Nature, with an emphasize on membrane protein.