Research

The main research topics the scientists at the Institute for Pathobiochemistry are interested in are the molecular mechanisms underlying aging and neurodegenerative disorders.

The most frequent neurodegenerative disorders of human are strictly associated with age. We aim to identify the common as well as specific factors that cause pathological changes on a biochemical and molecular level and to develop new approaches for prevention and therapy. Employing various experimental systems – cell cultures as well as animal model systems (C. elegans, mouse, rat) - we mimic processes of aging and disease and connect them to known pathomechanisms. Our models range from those representing Alzheimer‘s and Parkinson‘s Disease and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis to ischemia and chronic hypoperfusion.

The three research groups of the institute (Behl Group, Pietrzik Group, Moosmann Group) focus on different aspects of neurodegeneration:

• Behl Group
• Pietrzik Group
• Moosmann Group

The Institute for Pathobiochemistry is participating in several coordinated research programmes,

• the Collaborative Research Centre 'Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms of Neural Homeostasis' (SFB 1080), 
• the Collaborative Research Centre 'Molecular and Functional Characterization of Selective Autophagy' (SFB 1177),
• the Research Group 'Physiological Functions of the APP Gene Family in the Central Nervous System' (FOR 1332),
• the Competence Network 'Degenerative Dementias' (CNDD) of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research,
• mitoNET - German Network for Mitochondrial Disorders,
• MND-NET - German Network for Motor Neuron Diseases,
• COST Action BM1307 PROTEOSTASIS

and the Focus Program Translational Neurosciences (FTN) of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.