Brenda Schulman
Research Department "Molecular Machines and Signaling"
Structural Biology, Ubiquitin Proteasome System, Ubiquitin-like Protein
An important form of regulation is the modification of proteins and membranes by linking them to the small protein ubiquitin or structurally related ubiquitin-like proteins (UBLs). Ubiquitin and UBLs control timing, subcellular location, composition, conformation and activity of thousands of different proteins and macromolecules. In addition, defects in ubiquitin and UBL pathways are associated with numerous diseases such as cancer, neurodegenerative disorders and viral infections. Brenda Schulman's Department “Molecular Machines and Signaling” has shown that hundreds of microscopic, dynamic, multiprotein molecular machines are transiently transformed into different conformations by specialized regulatory factors to control ubiquitin and UBLs in order to regulate virtually all aspects of cell biology.
