Article

The recent call for project applications in the field of chemical biology has turned into a smashing success for scientists at the Vienna BioCenter (VBC): no less than six research groups secured funding for four projects. The successful projects included one submitted by regeneration researcher Elly Tanaka and two submitted with the participation of structural biologist Tim Clausen.

The Wiener Wissenschafts-, Forschungs- und Technologiefonds (WWTF, Vienna Science, Research and Technology Fund) is among the most important funding tools for basic research in Austria. Its recent call for the submission of chemical biology projects has attracted a high number of applications, and funding for up to four years for three projects submitted by IMP researchers: one by Elly Tanaka and two by Tim Clausen in cooperation with other scientists from the neighbouring Gregor-Mendel-Institute (GMI) and the Max F Perutz Laboratories (MFPL).

This WWTF call has yielded an exceptional success rate for the Vienna Biocenter (VBC), the life science cluster of which the IMP is a member: an impressive six VBC-based research groups have gained WWTF support for four individual projects which will be carried out by scientists in all four research institutes – IMP, IMBA, GMI and MFPL.

The selection was highly competitive: out of 77 projects initially submitted in the frame of this call, only 25 of them were invited to submit a full proposal. In the end, eight projects were successful – half of them from VBC scientists, three involving IMP groups. Collectively, the eight selected projects of this call will be supported with 4.7 million Euro, up to 700,000 Euro each.

More about Elly Tanaka’s work on the molecular mechanisms of regeneration
More about Tim Clausen’s work on the molecular mechanism of protein quality control

The selected projects

Tim Clausen (Research Institute of Molecular Pathology) - bac-PROTAC: Developing proteolysis-targeting small molecules for the selective elimination of bacterial proteins

Elly Margaret Tanaka (Research Institute of Molecular Pathology) - Photochemical control of biohybrid matrices to reconstitute nervous system organization from three-dimensional neural organoids

Yasin Dagdas (GMI - Gregor Mendel Institute for Molecular Plant Biology) with Tim Clausen as co-applicant - Manipulation of plant innate immune responses by small molecules probes

Daniel Gerlich (Institute of Molecular Biotechnology) - Elucidating sister chromatid structure by chemical DNA labeling and conformation capture

Christian Becker (University of Vienna) - Structure Zoom, Zooming in on protein functional sites with atomic resolution - an integrated chemistry approach for structural biology

Michael Freissmuth (Medical University of Vienna) - Interrogating the fate of dopamine transporter mutants by pharmacochaperones

Giulio Superti-Furga (CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences) - 3C - Cellular color chart

Roland Ludwig (University of Natural Resources and Life Science Vienna) - Diaziridine-FAD: A stable cofactor for biocatalysts and a molecular probe

VBC Announcement: http://viennabiocenter.org/
Vienna Science and Technology Fund: WWTF