Epigenetics is the study of chemicals and mechanisms that lead to distinct gene activity levels and, as a result, different phenotypes. Enzymes and proteins that establish, maintain, and sense epigenetic changes including DNA methylation, histone acetylation and methylation are essential regulators of gene activity and thus metabolic pathways. Metabolites, on the other hand, have an effect on epigenetics, which is of particular importance in cases of altered metabolism, such as cancer. Freiburg metabolism researchers investigate the impact of epigenetic alterations on metabolism and how this information might be exploited to develop new drugs. The community is focusing on dynamic processes and feedback loops between changed metabolism and altered epigenetic markers, rather than a static image of histone changes.
Manfred Jung 
Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy – Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences
RESEARCH: Chemical Epigenetics, Immunoncology, Infectious Diseases, Metabolic Signalling, Targeted protein degradation
METHODS: Medicinal Chemistry, Synthesis, Assay development, Small Molecule Screening, Cellular target engagement analysis
TECHNOLOGIES: Organic synthesis infrastructure, Plate washer and readers, 400 MHz NMR for small molecule analysis
Jörg Büscher
Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics, Metabolomics Core Facility
RESEARCH: Metabolomics sample preparation, Metabolomics measurements, Automatic data processing
METHODS: Discovery Metabolomics and Lipidomics, Targeted Metabolomics and Lipidomics, 13C label tracing
TECHNOLOGIES: GC-MS (Agilent), LC-QQQ-MS (Agilent), LC-QTOF-MS (Bruker)
Roland Schuele
Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center – Department of Urology
RESEARCH: Epigenetic control of metabolic Signalling, Cancer Metabolism, Mitochondria, Immunometabolism, Reprogramming of tumor microenvironment, Immune Sensing, Epigenetics, Structural Biology, Cell Biology, Medicinal Epigenetics and drug development, Cancer
METHODS: Pharmacologic and Genetic Manipulation of Metabolism, Extracellular Metabolic Flux Analysis, Untargeted Metabolomics by MS and NMR (outsourced and via collaborations), 3D structure analyses, structure-based small molecule drug development
TECHNOLOGIES: Seahorse XFe96 Flux Analyzer (Agilent), Hypoxic Workstations i2 and H35 (Whitley), MS and NMR-based metabolomics, crystal structure analyses, medicinal chemistry
