Frederik Sommer

Biography

1991 – 1999 Chemistry at the Universities of Saarbrücken and Freiburg 2000 - 2004 Dr. rer. nat. (PhD) under supervision of Prof. M. Hippler at the Dep. of Biochemistry, University of Freiburg and Dep. of Plant physiology, University of Jena 2004 Postdoc with Prof. M. Hippler at the Dep. of Biology, UPenn, Philadelphia 2005-2007 DFG fellow with Prof. S. Merchant at the Dep. of Chemistry and Biochemistry, UCLA, Los Angeles 2007 – 2008 DFG fellow with Prof. M. Schroda at the Dep. of Biochemistry, University of Freiburg 2008 - 2012 Research Associate with M. Schroda at the MPIMP Golm since 2012 Research Associate at the Dep. of Molecular Biotechnology and Systems Biology (Prof. M. Schroda), University of Kaiserslautern

Research Interest

Within a cell proteins do the work and modulating protein quantities, protein-protein interactions and posttranslational modifications are strategies to cope with changing environments. Proteins seldom work by themselves but are mostly part of highly ordered (multi-)protein complexes. These are in a state of equilibrium of protein stoichiometry, assembly and disassembly as needed to fulfill their task. Therefore, the stability of the protein-protein interactions within these complexes range from transient nature to some are rock-solid connections. I want to 1) elucidate strategies to modulate protein activity to cope with changing environments and 2) develop methods to make these modulations quantifiable.