Welcome to the Institute of Biological Chemistry, part of the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Vienna. The institute provides an excellent environment for research at the interface of synthetic organic chemistry, molecular biology, biophysics and biomedicine. We combine chemical approaches, such as the synthesis of modified amino acids with solid phase peptide synthesis (SPPS) and biotechnological methods to address scientific challenges in the areas of protein biochemistry, neuropeptide research, biomaterials and medicine. Combining synthetic chemistry with molecular biology provides a unique opportunity to generate biomolecules that are not or not easily accessible by any other technique.
The resulting peptides and proteins carrying (posttranslational) modifications allow us to study specific biological questions, such as folding, activity and interaction with other biomolecules in vitro and in vivo. Biotechnological and biomedical applications of such chemically modified peptides, proteins and hybrid molecules are an important part of our research.
Furthermore, we are developing spectroscopic methods to characterize biomolecules. A special focus lies on dissolution dynamic nuclear polarization, a technique that enables the determination of high-resolution structures of proteins, peptides and bio-inorganic materials in real-time.
