Dr. Carsten Schultz

Biography

Biography PhD 1989, University of Bremen, Germany. Postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Diego, USA. Habilitation 1997, Organic Chemistry, University of Bremen, Germany. Group leader, MPI for Molecular Physiology, Dortmund, Germany. Group leader at EMBL since 2001. Senior Scientist since 2008. Group leader in the Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit.

Research Interest

Previous and current research Past projects: Our research has previously focused on finding novel ways to stimulate chloride and water secretion of epithelial cells in understanding cystic fibrosis (CF). Our compounds helped to investigate some of the underlying intracellular signalling pathways and provided drug candidates to eventually treat CF patients. Of particular significance was the development of chemical methods to convert highly polar signalling molecules like cyclic nucleotides, inositol phosphates, and phosphoinositides to membrane-permeant, bioactivatable derivatives (‘prodrugs’) (Schultz 2003; Laketa et al. 2009, Laketa et al. 2014). Current projects: Our interest in CF has shifted to the development of lung emphysema – the ultimate cause of death in the patient. In a truly translational collaboration with the Mall group (MMPU), we develop FRET reporters to sense enzyme activities detrimental to lung tissue, such as macrophage and neutrophil elastases. At the cell biology level, our interest focuses on signalling networks regulated by G-protein-coupled and growth factor receptors. We developed a wide range of fluorescent reporter molecules, either genetically encoded (Piljić & Schultz, 2011) or as small molecule fluorescent probes (see figure). We hope to provide a more complete picture of the signalling network and to help find compounds beneficial in unravelling basic principles in signal transduction and, ultimately, in ion and enzyme secretion relevant to CF patients or in insulin secretion of s-cells. In addition, we prepared a large number of tools to manipulate signalling networks and are able to locally activate the important messenger such as PIP3 and DAG with a light flash in subcellular resolution in living cells (Mentel et al. 2011; Nadler et al. 2013, Nadler et al. submitted). In order to specifically label molecules with fluorophores in intact cells, we prepare highly stable unnatural amino acids that rapidly and irreversibly undergo cycloaddition reactions (click chemistry) with unsurpassed speed and study their application in collaboration with the Lemke group.