Macromolecular crystallography at the Philipps University Marburg (MarBAG)

Located at the Philipps-University-Marburg and the Max-Planck-Institute for terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg, Germany, the MarBAG employs X-ray crystallography to answer fundamental questions involving synthesis and assembly of macromolecular machines and cellular structures (e.g. CO2-fixation pathways, flagellar biosynthesis, CRISPR-Cas Systems, cell-wall-related processes). Our analysis of the structural basis of CO2 fixation and the synthesis of the green-house gas methane will help to engineer these processes as tools in climate control. Furthermore, we are interested in plant-pathogen interactions and the function of nucleotide derived signalling molecules in cellular stress physiology and organization. Currently, a 200 keV cryo-electron microscope is being installed at the UMR to complement our efforts to structurally characterize macromolecular complexes, which do not readily crystallize.