Sections of the Institute

Prof. Dr. Oliver Werz investigates mechanisms of action and targets of anti-inflammatory and anti-neoplastic compounds at the molecular and cellular level. In addition, Prof. Werz is searching for new therapeutic drugs for the treatment of inflammations, autoimmune diseases, neurodegenerative diseases and tumors. An important aspect of the research is gender-specific differences in pharmacotherapy (“gender medicine”).

Prof. Dr. Gerhard Scriba develops highly specialized, modern analytical separation techniques, particularly for purity testing of pharmaceutical drugs. The research includes the development of new methods for the separation of stereoisomers, mechanistic examination of the interaction between analyte and selector and the development of capillary electrophoresis-based enzyme assays.

Websites Pharmaceutical/Medicinal Chemistry de (German)

The research in Prof. Dr. Dirk Hoffmeister's group focuses on the natural products of basidiomycetes (stipe fungi). The two major objectives of his research are (i) the elucidation of natural product biosynthetic pathways and (ii) the biotechnological and heterologous production of active substances. However, he also investigates the biological role of the compounds within the fungal environment.

PD Dr. Markus Gressler investigates the biochemical and genetic basis of the natural products of basal fungi(especially the Mucoromycetes and Zoopagomycetes). His objective is the elucidation the biosynthetic routes leading to natural products, but also their genetic origin. In addition, our research focuses on the applicability of natural products in pharmacy and crop plant protection as well as the investigation of their protective function in an ecological context.

Websites Pharmaceutical Microbiology de (German)

Prof. Dr. Thomas Winckler is interested to uncover the molecular mechanisms that certain mobile genetic elements use to identify specific integration sites in the genome of the "social amoeba" Dictyostelium discoideum. The pharmaceutical perspective of this research is to improve current retroviral gene therapy vectors with a component that may help reduce the genotoxicity of such vectors. In another research field Prof. Winckler is interested to determine how individual cells of social amoeba communicate with each other during the aggregation of single cells into multicellular organisms that later form fruiting bodies. Finally, Prof. Winckler is using cell-based and other assays to uncover new lead structures as NMDA receptor antagonists that may be useful as drugs for the therapy of Alzheimer´s disease.

Websites Pharmaceutical Biology

Prof. Dr. Dagmar Fischer and Prof. Dr. Paola Luciani both left the Institute of Pharmacy. The reoccupation of the professorships is on the way.

Websites Pharmaceutical Technology de (German)