In his project “DaVinci Switches” (Designing Allosteric Protein Switches by In Vivo Directed Evolution and Computational Inference), Professor Dominik Niopek is working on new methods to engineer switchable proteins in a targeted, time- and cost-saving manner.

Proteins are molecular machines that perform a variety of tasks in cells. For example, they are of central importance for the movement of cells, their growth or for energy production. Switchable proteins controllable via external stimuli such as light or drugs can hence be used to influence selected functions in living cells and organisms from the outside and thus to direct cell behaviour. This strategy holds enormous potential for application in basic research, biotechnology and medicine. However, until now it has often been difficult and time-consuming to engineer switchable variants of a particular protein of interest. The development of switchable proteins is often approached by trial and error, i.e. lengthy experimentation with different protein switch configurations and the resulting protein switches do not always function as desired.

The vision of the “DaVinci Switches” ERC project is to develop informative computer models and complementary laboratory methods for the design of switchable proteins controllable via external stimuli. For this, Niopek’s team will combine methods for directed protein evolution in the laboratory with high-throughput screening approaches and artificial intelligence. The resulting protein switches will then be used, among other things, to replace damaged tissue by transiently activating cell division and direct cell identity, thus opening new avenues in regenerative medicine. Niopek’s team will be supported by collaborators at TU Darmstadt as well as at the University of Heidelberg and EPFL Lausanne.

In the project “MotLang – Motives and the Langlands program”, Professor Timo Richarz and his research group are investigating applications of motives in the Langlands programme. The researchers want to contribute to closing a long-standing gap in the field of research.

The Langlands programme builds on the work of the Canadian mathematician Robert Langlands from the 1960s and is an active field of research in pure mathematics with links to number theory, geometry and analysis. Langlands conjectured a translation mechanism between arithmetic and analysis: a close connection between motives, a linearisation of solution sets of polynomial equations and automorphic forms. The theory of motives was only developed to a rudimentary level at the beginning of the Langlands programme, so it was difficult to specify this link. Despite immense advances in both the theory of motives and the Langlands programme, little progress has been made so far in specifying the direct link between motives and automorphic forms. Based on previous work, in the MotLang project Timo Richarz’s team is approaching this question in the context of the Langlands parameterisation for function fields.