Vienna Biocenter 2014

RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF MOLECULAR PATHOLOGY VIENNA BIOCENTER 2014 IMP Cover 2014.indd 1 19.01.15 14:33 CONTENTS Introduction ...........................................................................................2 Obituary Prof. Max Birnstiel ..............................................................4 RESEARCH GROUPS Meinrad Busslinger ..............................................................................6 Tim Clausen ............................................................................................8 Luisa Cochella ......................................................................................10 Wulf Haubensak ..................................................................................12 David Keays ...........................................................................................14 Thomas Marlovits ...............................................................................16 Rushad Pavri .........................................................................................18 Jan-Michael Peters .............................................................................20 Simon Rumpel .....................................................................................22 Alexander Stark ...................................................................................24 Andrew Straw .......................................................................................26 Alipasha Vaziri ......................................................................................28 Stefan Westermann ............................................................................30 Manuel Zimmer ...................................................................................32 Johannes Zuber ..................................................................................34 CORE FACILITIES BioOptics Facility ................................................................................36 Bioinformatics ......................................................................................37 Protein Chemistry .............................................................................38 Comparative Medicine ��39 Transgenic Service .............................................................................39 Molecular Biology Service ...............................................................40 Max Perutz Library .............................................................................41 Campus Science Support Facilities ..............................................42 Publications Research Groups ...................................................... 44 Publications Core Facilities .............................................................46 Seminar Speakers ...............................................................................48 Awards & Honors ................................................................................51 Sponsors & Partners ..........................................................................52 Scientific Advisory Board .................................................................53 Administration and Other Services ..............................................54 The IMP and its Surroundings ........................................................56 Your Career at the IMP ......................................................................58 Contact/Directions ............................................................................64 Impressum.............................................................................................64 INTRODUCTION Science is changing the world, all the time, and in exceptional quality of our core scientific services, the the last decades faster than ever. When the internationality of our PhD Programme, the ability of IMP opened its doors, now more than a the IMP to attract some of the most talented young quarter of a century ago, it aspired to scientists from all over the world, the complete become one of the driving forces freedom and independence of our group leaders in this process. The IMP aimed in their research, the relatively high turn-over rate for nothing less than helping to among all scientists, including faculty members, J uncover fundamental principles and - last but not least - the unusual commitment A N - of life, motivated primarily by of all staff members to making the IMP a great M I C H scientific curiosity, but realizing success and a wonderful place to work. We are very A E L that it is today’s basic research in grateful to Boehringer Ingelheim and the shareholder P E T E families for making the existence of an institute R biology which will lay the foundation S M a for better medicine in the future. Since with such unique assets possible, to the national na gi ng e and international funding agencies who support Director/ Scienc then the IMP has indeed contributed to our understanding of how “life works”. This is us in this endeavor. And of course we want to pay remarkable, given that the IMP is tiny by comparison a special tribute to the IMP’s founding director Max to other research organizations, and given Birnstiel on whose vision all of these principles are that it is located far away from the based. We are very sad that Max passed away this centers where today’s prevailing year, unexpectedly and too early. We encourage life science disciplines, molecular you to read more about Max and how he opened biology, biochemistry, structural the IMP on the following pages, and in obituaries biology, genetics, immunology written by Jeff Schatz (Cell 160:11-12, January 15, H A and neurobiology, were invented. 2015) and by Adrian Bird and Michael Grunstein R A L (PNAS 112:302-3, January 13, 2015). D I S E Research at the IMP has never just M A N n been “me too”, but is driven by the If you will read how Max decided to become the N o ti M a a tr desire for real novelty. The first key first IMP director, in a place that was hardly known n is ag in in m for modern life science research at the time, with a g Ad molecules of epigenetic regulation, Dire nd ctor/ Finance a methyl-DNA binding proteins and histone total staff of only 90 employees at the beginning, modifying enzymes, important principles of the but fearlessly willing to compete with the best and metastatic epithelial-mesenchymal transition, cohesin biggest biology centers of the world, you may be and separase as key regulators of chromosome reminded of Asterix the Gaul who in a tiny remote structure and segregation, the mechanisms by village resisted the legendary Roman army. But Max which the fruitless gene determines sexual behavior, had the wise intuition that - unlike Asterix and his the decisive role of the transcription factor Pax5 in villagers - the IMP might not be able to succeed determining B-cell differentiation, the existence and survive just on its own. Max therefore added of arginine phosphorylation and the enzymes that one more key ingredient to his magic potion that create and remove this modification, methods that would allow the tiny IMP to survive in a global enable the genome-wide identification of enhancers scientific world among giants like MIT or Harvard: or the organism-wide visualization of neuronal the idea for the Vienna Biocenter (VBC). Max made activity, these were all discovered or invented at his acceptance conditional on the commitment the IMP, and in many cases only here. It is fair to of the University of Vienna to move its molecular say that without the IMP, biology textbooks would biology departments directly next to the IMP. This not be the same. led to the foundation of what is now known as Max F. Perutz Laboratories (MFPL) and initiated the The reasons that have enabled these achievements formation of a life science campus whose size and have often been described and praised: the generous success even Max could not have predicted at the funding by our sponsor Boehringer Ingelheim, the time. Together with MFPL professor Alexander von 2 / IMP ANNUAL REPORT 2014 Gabain, Max founded InterCell (now Valneva), which later led But not only scientific knowledge, technologies and infrastructure to the set up of Affiris by Walter Schmidt who was a postdoc are constantly changing, so are also modern societies and in Max´s lab at the IMP. On the academic side, Boehringer what they expect from the next generations of scientists. Ingelheim and the IMP entered a collaboration with the To prepare these as well as possible for their future, at Austrian Academy of Sciences, an agreement which initiated the IMP and beyond, academic training coordinator Inês the foundation of IMBA and GMI. In order to keep pace with Crisostomo launched for the first time in 2014 two “prime the rapidly advancing technologies required for modern your PhD” courses. These three-week events “were tough”, biomedical research a Campus Science Support Facility CSF, many participants said, “but extremely useful”. Inês also which now perfectly complements our internal services was launched the “Ambassador Programme” in which senior established a couple of years ago with generous support or freshly graduated members of the VBC PhD Programme from the Austrian Science Ministry and the City of Vienna. At visit their home university to spread the word about how the IMP we are both proud and grateful: proud that the IMP exciting doing a PhD at the VBC can be. Together with the initiated these developments, and grateful to our colleagues VBC Summer School,

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