Bernhard Küster

Bernhard Küster (born 1967 in Remscheid ) is a German biochemist and professor for proteomics and bioanalysis at the Technical University of Munich .

Live and act

Bernhard Küster graduated from the Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen-Gymnasium in Remscheid in 1987 and then served in the German Armed Forces until 1988. From 1988 to 1994 he studied chemistry at the University of Cologne and graduated with a diploma . He then moved to Oxford in the United Kingdom , where he received his doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1997 as a Doctor of Philosophy , which enables him to work at the highest level.

Until 2000 he was a postdoctoral fellow at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg and at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense, Denmark . From 2000 to 2007 he was Vice President for “Analytical Sciences and Informatics” at Cellzome AG (now part of GlaxoSmithKline ) in Heidelberg.

Since 2007 he has been professor and full professor for “Proteomics and Bioanalytics” at the Technical University of Munich at the Weihenstephan Science Center on the Freising-Weihenstephan campus . There he has also been the head of the Department of Biosciences at the Technical University of Munich since 2009.

Since June 2014 he has been a co-founder of the biotech company "OmicScouts".

Researches

Headquarters of the Chair for Proteomics and Bioanalytics

Board on the border to the campus

Diverse research tasks of the team

Since September 2007, he has been heading an international research team as “Full Professor”, which has focused on proteomics and chemical biology. He coordinates the “ProteomeTools project”, is a senior researcher at the Excellence Cluster Center for Integrated Protein Science Munich (CIPSM), at the German Consortium for Translational Cancer Research (DKTK) and at the “Collaborative Research Center” SFB 924 (English target: molecular mechanisms regulating yield and yield stability in plants). He is also co-director of the Bavarian Biomolecular Mass Spectrometry Center (BayBioMS), which is also located on campus .

Technologies

Küster and his team conduct research using various technologies, such as mass spectrometry as well as biochemical, chemical and cell biological processes. It is essential that they are supported by a special IT infrastructure.

Database support

The “ProteomicsDB” database is the so-called “flagship” of the chair, a joint project between the Technical University of Munich and the SAP company . Its job is to speed up the identification of the human proteome and make its application more quickly possible for the entire scientific community.

The "ProteomeTools Project" is a joint project of the Technical University of Munich, the company "JPT Peptide Technologies" as well as SAP and Thermo Fisher Scientific . Its mission is to use the human proteome to enable molecular and digital tools for drug discovery, the development of personalized medicine and research in the life sciences.

Participation in the Center for Integrated Protein Science Munich (CIPSM)

The scientists of the CIPSM cluster investigate the properties of proteins and their networks in a comprehensive approach, including genetic, (bio) chemical and (bio) physical methods. A deeper understanding of the properties and functions of proteins provides information about their biological interaction, the causes of serious diseases and new therapeutic approaches.

With numerous new insights into the synthesis, three-dimensional structure and interaction of proteins, this cluster is now an international leader in protein research. In the future, the interactions of proteins in their network relationships and the therapeutic uses are to be researched more intensively.

The LMU Munich , TUM, the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry and the Helmholtz Center Munich are involved in the research center .

Research Result - Maps of the Human Proteome

A crucial advance was described as follows:

“In May 2014, a group from TUM led by Prof. Bernhard Küster and a group of US researchers presented one of the first two truly comprehensive maps of the human proteome - the entirety of all proteins that our body can produce. Genes provide the blueprint for proteins and the Munich-based company has provided evidence for 92% or 18,097 of the basic protein forms derived from the human genome. These basic forms are just the beginning, however, as humans have a multitude of mechanisms at their disposal to modify proteins according to different needs. Nevertheless, the researchers have already been able to gain a number of fundamental findings from the protein maps available. Obviously, hundreds of genes have been shut down in the course of evolution because no proteins can be found for them. At the same time, new proteins seem to be emerging that were previously completely unknown.

The work was made possible primarily by two methodological advances: On the one hand, mass spectrometry now allows specialists to analyze the proteome of human tissue within a few days and at a cost of a few 1,000 euros. On the other hand, a database developed by the Küster Group together with the SAP company enables the international research community to collect and jointly evaluate the analysis results that have been scattered in many individual files.

The focus is also on the medical benefit. Bernhard Küster and his team have already been able to use their data to predict the effectiveness of drugs from the protein profile of cancer cells. In the long term, the researchers want to advance personalized and targeted therapy for patients through the biological understanding of the proteome and the genome. "

Publications

List of publications on the chair's website accessed on January 3, 2018

Awards and activities

Prizes and awards

• Heinz Maier Leibnitz Prize, Technical University of Munich (2014)
• Mattauch-Herzog doctoral award for the dissertation (1997) "Studies towards the sequencing of oligosaccharides by mass spectrometry" created at the "Glycobiology Institute of the University of Oxford" (United Kingdom)
• Membership in the " European Molecular Biology Organization " (EMBO) from 1997 to 1999

Research groups

• Senior scientist of the "Excellence Cluster" CIPSM (Center for Integrated Protein Science Munich) funded by the DFG
• Senior scientist of the BMBF funded "German Center for Translational Cancer"

Professional and social activities

• Co-organizer of the "Summer School Advanced Proteomics"
• Co-editor of the online journal "Molecular and Cellular Proteomics".

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Chair of Proteomics and Bioanalytics, English text, accessed on January 3, 2018
2. ↑ Internet presence of the company Omicscouts , accessed on January 3, 2018.
3. ↑ site database Proteomtools , accessed on January 3, 2018th
4. ↑ website CIPSM , accessed on January 3, 2018th
5. ↑ Cancer genome and proteome analysis platform on the DKTK website , accessed on January 5, 2018.
6. ↑ BayBioMS website , accessed on January 3, 2018.
7. ^ ProteomicsDB website , accessed January 3, 2018.
8. ↑ site database Proteomtools , accessed on January 3, 2018th
9. ↑ Introduction to "The First Maps of the Human Proteome". In: Fascination Research Issue 15. [1]
10. ↑ website CIPSM , accessed on January 3, 2018th
11. ↑ Website of the 11th Summer School for Proteomics in Neustift, South Tyrol , accessed on January 3, 2018.
12. ↑ Website of the online journal MCP ( Memento of the original from January 11, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed January 3, 2018. 

Web links

• CV, picture and publications of Bernhard Küster , accessed on January 3, 2018.
• Publications on the Google Scholar with picture , accessed on January 3, 2018.