image: from the LIMES Institute at the University of Bonn has been awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant.
Credit: Photo: Volker Lannert/University of Bonn
Which signaling pathways are disrupted by the development of tumors and how can they be addressed effectively? Professor Günter Mayer from the LIMES Institute at the University of Bonn is investigating these questions. The researcher has been awarded a coveted Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) for this project. The European Union is providing some €2.5 million in funding over the next five years.
Cancer develops when cells in the body multiply uncontrollably. The tumor destroys the surrounding tissue and spreads to other parts of the body. “We are working to develop new methods to identify the molecules and their complexes in living cells that play an important role in tumor development,” says the biochemistry professor Günter Mayer from the LIMES Institute at the University of Bonn. He has been awarded a coveted Advanced Grant from the European Research Council to fund the project “Intramer-Mediated Multi-Parallel MAPping of Signaling Pathways”. Around €2.5 million will flow into the project over the next five years to fund its search for switches in the body’s signaling pathways that can be used to slow down or block the growth of tumors.
The project focuses on so-called intramers. These are intracellular aptamers—nucleic acids that bind target molecules within living cells in a similar way to antibodies. As such, they can influence the metabolic processes that play a central role in the development of cancer. “The challenge is to detect target proteins and their complexes in the entire proteome—i.e. the entirety of proteins in a cell—that are associated with tumor development and that can be therapeutically attacked by intramers,” says Mayer, who is also a member of the Transdisciplinary Research Areas Matter and Life & Health at the University of Bonn.
“ERC funding will enable us to establish the project on a broader basis and take a longer-term approach than would otherwise be possible,” says Professor Mayer. With the project, the biochemist has chosen a comprehensive approach that involves several scientific disciplines. “The technologies are intended to influence signaling pathways that are not only found in connection with tumor development, but can also be applied to diseases such as obesity,” says Mayer.
Biography
Born in Munich in 1972, Günter Mayer studied chemistry at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and took his doctorate in Bonn. After working for a Munich-based start-up, he became group leader at the LIMES Institute at the University of Bonn. Günter Mayer then taught at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow and accepted the appointment as a Professor of Chemical Biology & Chemical Genetics at the University of Bonn in 2010. In 2017, Professor Mayer established the Center of Aptamer Research & Development at the University of Bonn. In 2019 he co-founded the start-up Clickmer Systems, which was awarded a prize at BioRiver Boost 2017. Awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant in 2013, together with other researchers he won first place in the ZukunftErfinden NRW competition in 2015. Professor Mayer was appointed as Representative of Transfer at the University of Bonn in 2018.
Media contact:
Prof. Dr. Günter Mayer
Life & Medical Sciences (LIMES)-Institut
University of Bonn
Phone: +49 228 734808
Email: gmayer@uni-bonn.de