We plan to fill one C3 position at LMU Chemistry with a full professor at the W3 level as part of a strategic decision. The idea is to assign this position with somebody working in Chemical Biology who is evaluating the biological role of natural products. Right now groups such as Schreiber and Shair in Harvard, Nicolaou at Scripps, and Waldmann at the MPI in Dortmund foster the development of natural product libraries as tools for cell biology research. In order to establish this research direction at LMU we have to fill one additional W3 position with somebody involved in natural product synthesis/analysis. Alternatively, carbohydrate research would be an area most welcome. Carbohydrate research is strongly underrepresented not only at the LMU but even in Germany as a whole, especially after the retirement of Schmidt (Konstanz) and Kunz (Mainz). Currently the Organic Chemistry devision of the chemistry department at LMU is excellent in traditional fields but does not provide the required broad basis to initiate new collaboration with biology on a larger scale. So far only the Carell group is strongly interacting. In order to move chemistry at LMU in a more competitive position, we need to establish one additional chair in chemical genetics.
 

We further apply for a tenure-track junior research group “Protein modelling”, whose scientific focus will include computational modelling of protein structures and also of protein/protein and protein/ligand interactions. The proposed professorship is expected to work on computational modelling of protein folding, loop conformation, and internal dynamics as well as on interactions of soluble and membrane-bound proteins with other proteins, small organic ligands, and lipids. The work will involve application of state-of-the art molecular dynamics and docking algorithms. While there is already strong expertise in sequence-based bioinformatics in the Munich area, this group will bring in knowledge in structure-based bioinformatics approaches and is thought to strongly interact with experimental laboratories that are active in protein engineering, NMR and X-ray crystallography as well as chemical genetics.