Dr. Andrea Pichler, Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics Freiburg, Germany

Those who would like to discuss with Dr. Pichler on Thursday, May 17th or Friday, May 18th, please contact Lea Sistonen (lea.sistonen@btk.fi, lea.sistonen@abo.fi, 02-2153311, 050-4013513)

Dr. Pichler is a true pioneer in SUMO research. Before becoming a PI at the Max Planck Institute in Freiburg, Germany, she was post-doc in the group of Frauke Melchior who is the Mother of SUMO – Note that Frauke Melchior is this year¹s recipient of the FEBS/EMBO Women in Science Award:

http://www.embo.org/news/press-releases/2018/frauke-melchior-receives-the-2018-febs-embo-women-in-science-award

Dr. Pichler has made several important discoveries of the enzymatic conjugation mechanisms and structural features of the components of the SUMO machinery.

http://www.ie-freiburg.mpg.de/pichler

Selected publications:

PICHLER A, Fatouros C, Lee H, Eisenhardt N. 2017. SUMO conjugation – a mechanistic view. Biomol. Concepts 8:13-36.

Eisenhardt N, Chaugule VK, PICHLER A. 2016. A fluorescent in vitro assay to investigate paralog-specific SUMO conjugation. Methods Mol. Biol. 1475:67-78.

Cappadocia L, PICHLER A, Lima CD. 2015. Structural basis for catalytic activation by the human ZNF451 SUMO E3 ligase. Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol. 22:968-975.

Eisenhardt N, Chaugule VK, Koidi S, Droescher M, Dogan E, Rettich J, Sutinen P, Imanishi SY, Hofmann K, Palvimo JJ, PICHLER A. 2015. A new vertebrate SUMO enzyme family reveals insights into SUMO-chain assembly. Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol. 22:959-967.

Klug H, Xaver M, Chaugule VK, Koidi S, Mittler G, Klein F, PICHLER A. 2013. Ubc9 sumoylation controls SUMO chain formation and meiotic synapsis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Mol. Cell 50:625-636.