Structural basis of cell adhesion and signaling at a molecular level

Our laboratory is interested in understanding in detail molecular mechanisms involved in cell adhesion and cell signaling. We study how proteins interact with each other in signaling cascades or to assemble cell adhesion complexes. We also study how those proteins are regulated, for example how they shift from inactive to active states, or how protein–protein interactions are favored or inhibited.

We aim at learning how protein networks behave under physiological conditions and how they are altered in human pathologies.

To address such questions we apply multidisciplinary approaches. We combine multi-dimensional structural biology hybrid methods (X-ray crystallography, SAXS), protein engineering, and quantitative biophysical and biochemical methods.