Biology of the proteasome system

For cells to function and therefore life to exist, proteins have to be processed and their constituents recycled or destroyed. The Proteasome is the organelle where this occurs. Contemporary understanding of the proteasome system is that it massively diversifies the way in which proteins are degraded and couples this with presentation to the immune system. This is an ambitious suite of studies aimed at fundamental understanding of the rules of how the different core proteasomes (constitutive proteasome, immunoproteasome, thymoproteasome and spermatoproteasome, its adaptors (PA200, PA700, PA28alphabeta and PA28 gamma) and its known and to be discovered regulators. These findings have deep implications for our understanding of life and disease, in particular cancer, viral infection and neurodegeneration. Specific subprojects here include biochemical, genomic, immunology, virology and synthetic biology projects. These projects can be at any level but are designed explicitly for ambitious students, willing to apply themselves to discovery research.