Mitochondria are the central organelle of cellular metabolism. They host key metabolic pathways including the respiratory electron transport chain (ETC) and the Krebs cycle (named after Freiburg scientist Hans A. Krebs). Understanding mitochondria is therefore key to metabolism research. Freiburg Metabolism researchers study the function of ETC complexes, mitochondrial protein import, mitochondrial dynamics and other key aspects of mitochondrial biology. The community is increasingly interested in cell type specific functions of mammalian mitochondrial and their role as signalling hubs.
Olaf Groß 
Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center – Institute of Neuropathology
RESEARCH: Immunometabolism, Cancer Metabolism, Metabolic Signalling, Mitochondria, Innate Immune Sensing, Macrophage Signal Transduction and Cell Biology, Cell Death, Inflammatory, Infectious, Cardiovascular and Nervous System Diseases
METHODS: Pharmacologic and Genetic Manipulation of Metabolism, Extracellular Metabolic Flux Analysis, Small Molecule Screening, Untargeted Metabolomics by MS and NMR (outsourced and via collaborations)
TECHNOLOGIES: Seahorse XFe96 Flux Analyzer (Agilent), Hypoxic Workstations i2 and H35 (Whitley), Multidrop Reagent Dispenser (Thermo)
Daniel Erny
Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center – Institute of Neuropathology, Extracellular Flux Core Facility
RESEARCH: Immunometabolism, Mitochondria, Microglia, CNS Macrophages, Host-Microbiota-Crosstalk, Nervous System Diseases
METHODS: Extracellular Metabolic Flux Analysis, flow cytometry-based metabolic analysis (Oxphos, mitochondrial mass, membrane potential, mitochondrial ROS production,…), high resolution confocal microscopy of mitochondria, transmission electron microscopy, microglia in vitro cultures
Luciana Hannibal
Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center – Department of General Pediatrics, Adolescent Medicine and Neonatology, MetaboCF Core Facility
RESEARCH: Inborn errors of metabolism, Genetic modifiers of metabolism, Sulfur-metabolism, Redox signalling, Cofactor enzymology and trafficking, Nutrition, Nutritional and Genetic deficiencies of vitamin B12, multiorgan-metabolic integration
METHODS: Metabolic labeling in cell culture, Targeted metabolomic profiling by mass spectrometry, Characterization of pathogenic protein variants, Protein-cofactor interactions, Rapid kinetics by stopped-flow, Biomarker discovery and standardization
TECHNOLOGIES: UHPLC Nexera X2/QTRAP Sciex 6500+ MS, HPLC -TSQ Vantage Triple Quadrupole MS, GC-MS system (7890 GC system coupled to a 5975C mass spectrometer, Agilent), Stopped-Flow with double mixer and dual UV-Vis/Fluorescence detection
Ian Gentle
Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center – Institute for Microbiology and Hygiene
RESEARCH: Immunometabolism, Cancer Metabolism, Mitochondria, Innate Immune Sensing, Macrophages, Signal Transduction, Cell Biology, Cell Death, Inflammation, Crosstalk between cell death signalling and metabolism, Authophagy, metabolic regulation of transcription factors in AML
METHODS: Pharmacologic and Genetic Manipulation of Metabolism, Fluorescence microscopy, Extracellular Metabolic Flux Analysis, CRISPR-Cas9
Robert Zeiser
Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center – Internal Medicine I (Hematology and Oncology)
RESEARCH: Immunometabolism, Cancer Immunotherapy, Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplantation, Graft-versus-Host Disease, Oncogenic Signaling
METHODS: Pharmacologic and Genetic Manipulation of signaling in tumor cells, animal models for acute leukemia and melanoma, Metabolism, Extracellular Metabolic Flux Analysis, bioluminescence imaging
Claudia Jessen-Trefzer
Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy – Institute of Organic Chemistry
RESEARCH: Infectious Diseases, Mycobacteria, Mycobacterial Metabolite Transporters, Metabolic Signalling, Signal Transduction, Extracellular Nanocompartments, Synthetic Biology, Mycobacterial Membranes, Antibiotics, Drug or Photosensitizer-Metabolite Conjugates and Organometallic Complexes
METHODS: Genetic Manipulation of Metabolism, Small Molecule Screening, Targeted Metabolomics by MS, Protein Isolation and Characterization, Proteomics (in collaboration), Molecular Biology, Microbiology, Organic Synthesis
TECHNOLOGIES: LED array 96-well plate (Teleopt), ChemStudio (Analytics Jena)
Nina Cabezas-Wallscheid
Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics
RESEARCH: Hematopoietic Stem Cell Metabolism, Cancer Stem Cell Metabolism, Metabolic Signalling, Interplay Metabolism-Epigenetics, Dietary Habits and Stem Cell Fate, Quiescence
METHODS: Dietary, Pharmacologic and Genetic Manipulation of Metabolism, Untargeted and Targeted (low input 10,000 cells) Metabolomics by MS, Extracellular Metabolic Flux Analysis
Felicitas Bucher
Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center – Eye Center
RESEARCH: Signal Transduction, Metabolic Signalling, Mitochondria, Cell Biology, Angiogenesis, Retinal Vasoproliferative Disease
METHODS: Pharmacologic Manipulation of Metabolism, Extracellular Metabolic Flux Analysis (via collaboration), mouse models of retinal vasoproliferative disease (mouse model of oxygen-induced retinopathy, VLDLR Knockout mouse model, Laser-CNV model), RNAseq analysis (outsourced), untargeted Metabolomics (via collaboration)
Dietrich Ruess
Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center – Department of General and Visceral Surgery
RESEARCH: Cancer Metabolism, Autophagy, Mitochondria, Pancreatic Cancer, Targeted Therapy, Tumor Microenvironment, Immunooncology
METHODS: Indirect Interference with mutant KRAS driven tumor cell intrinsic metabolic rewiring, Pharmacologic and Genetic Manipulation, Small Molecule Evaluation, Seahorse, Targeted Metabolomics and Metabolic Flux Analysis by MS (via collaboration)
Chris Meisinger
Medical Faculty – Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
RESEARCH: Dynamic Adaptation of the Mitochondrial Proteome upon Stress and Metabolic Switches, Metabolic Signalling, Mitochondria, Signal Transduction, Cell Biology, Nervous System Diseases, Oncogenic Signalling
METHODS: Mitochondrial and Submitochondrial Proteomics and Phosphoproteomics, Global Kinome Profiling for Mitochondrial Signalling Pathways, Import and Assembly of Mitochondrial Proteins, Extracellular Metabolic Flux Analysis
TECHNOLOGIES: Seahorse XFe96 Flux Analyzer (Agilent)
Bertram Bengsch
Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center – Department of Medicine II (Gastroenterology, Hepatology, Endocrinology and Infectious Disease)
RESEARCH: Immunometabolism, Metabolic Signalling, Mitochondria, Single-cell Immune Profiling, Mass Cytometry, Imaging Mass Cytometry, Adaptive Immunity, T cells, T cell exhaustion, Signal Transduction, Inflammatory Diseases, Infectious Diseases, Liver Diseases, Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy
METHODS: Metabolism-directed flow and mass cytometry, imaging Pharmacologic and Genetic Manipulation of Metabolism, Extracellular Metabolic Flux Analysis, Untargeted Metabolomics by MS and NMR (outsourced and via collaborations)
TECHNOLOGIES: Mass cytometry, Imaging Mass cytometry, Hypoxia chambers, Flow cytometry
CIBSS, SFB/TRR 167, SFB 1160, SFB 1479, DKTK
Nils Wiedemann
Faculty of Medicine – Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
RRSEARCH: Mitochondrial Energy Metabolism, Compartment Specific Metabolomics, Mitochondrial Diseases, Mitochondrial Protein Import and Membrane Insertion, Protein Assembly, Protein Machineries, Cell Biology, Structural Biology
METHODS: Genetic Manipulation of Metabolism, Extracellular Metabolic Flux Analysis, Untargeted Metabolomics by MS (via collaborations), Subcellular Fractionation, In vitro import of Radiolabelled Proteins into Isolated Mitochondria, Blue-native PAGE, Biochemistry
TECHNOLOGIES: Seahorse XFe96 Flux Analyzer (Agilent), Cryomill (Retsch)
Katrin Kierdorf
Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center – Institute of Neuropathology
RESEARCH: Developmental Immunology, Macrophage Development, Macrophage Function, Immunometabolism, Macrophage Metabolism, Metabolic Signalling
METHODS: Ex vivo cell culture platform to study immunometabolism in resident tissue macrophages, tissue normoxic cell cultures, transgenic Drosophila to study conserved immunometabolic signalling
CIBSS, SFB/TRR 167, CRC 1479
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)
Melanie Börries
Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center – Institute of Medical Bioinformatics and Systems Medicine
RESEARCH: Multi-Omics data analysis, cancer metabolism, (genetic) analyses of metabolic signaling, identification of disease biomarkers and potential therapeutic options, pipeline development for high-throughput data for clinical research and applications (e.g. Molecular Tumor Board)
METHODS: machine learning methods, development and application of standardized workflows for the analysis, integration and visualization of omics data, single-cell analysis, creating user-friendly databases
TECHNOLOGIES: High-performance computer cluster, 10x Genomics
Heike Rampelt
Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center – Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, ZBMZ
RESEARCH: Mitochondrial Respiration & Physiology, Membrane Architecture, MICOS, F1Fo-ATP Synthase, Respiratory Chain, Membrane Contact Sites, Mitochondrial Biogenesis & Dynamics, Mitochondrial Phospholipids, Biochemistry
METHODS: OXPHOS activity assays, Membrane Potential, Native Complex Assembly / Stability by BN-PAGE, Protein-Protein Interactions, Molecular Biology; Membrane Architecture & Dynamics by EM and Fluorescence Microscopy, Mass Spectrometry (via collaborations)
TECHNOLOGIES: OXPHOS activity assays, Native Complex Assembly / Stability by BN-PAGE, Protein-Protein Interactions
