Institute of Synthetische Bioarchitekturen

Research Focus

The cellular membrane is one of the most intriguing architectures in the living world. Proteins, lipids and carbohydrates are the functional units, associated with the cellular membrane as a structural entity. In our institute, we investigate the structural-functional relationships among proteins, carbohydrates and lipid membanes. The trajectory of our research, synthetic Bioarchitectures, is a typical bottom up approach, where functional units, such as membrane proteins, including integral, associated, transmembrane, and peripheral membrane proteins. are re-assembled into membrane architectures. This allows the investigation of membrane proteins in a biomimicking environment to understand their function in molecular detail. The umbrella ‘synthetic Bioarchitectures’ pursues strong interdisciplinary aspects between (organic) Chemistry, (molecular) Biology, and (Bio)-Physics. The institute is well integrated inside BOKU University and in the research landscape of Vienna, namely the University of Vienna, Vienna University of Technology, and Medical University of Vienna by present and planned collaborations. Additionally, we are collaborating with international research groups from Germany, France and – in the framework of the Research school, with Singapore. The institute hosts the research background to synthesize complex bio-inspired architectues mimicking the cellular membrane. With the help of those reproducible, stable and defined membrane architectures we can tackle questions of membrane protein insertion, function and sensing. The biophysical aspects related to artificial membrane architectures, with emphasis on S-layer protein supported membranes, is addressed explicitly in our institute strategy. Pitching into the future activities, we like to define and establish our institute with a strong profile in biophysical characterization background about novel, optical methods for characterizing membrane structures, functional, nano- assemblies and membrane protein research in living cells.