At IMB, we explore the molecular biology of the nucleus with an overarching focus on gene regulation, epigenetics & genome stability

Synthetic biophysics of protein disorder

Edward Lemke

Intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) are dynamic proteins that do not have a single well-defined structure, but instead adopt a range of different conformations. Because of this, IDPs are extremely hard to study. In my lab, we use cutting-edge chemical and synthetic biology, microfluidics, and super-resolved microscope engineering to develop innovative techniques to study IDPs in vital cellular processes like genome regulation. This includes engineering designer organelles to build synthetic proteins with fluorescent labels at specific sites, which enables us to better visualise their conformational changes at high resolution down to the single molecule level.

Research website

Positions held

  • Since 2018: Adjunct Director, Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB) & Professor of Synthetic Biophysics, Johannes Gutenberg University, (JGU), Mainz
  • Since 2009: Group Leader, EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany
  • 2005-2008:  Research Associate (Postdoc), The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA

Education

  • 2005: PhD MPI for Biophysical Chemistry and University of Göttingen, Germany
  • 2001: Diploma in Chemistry, Technical University of Berlin, Germany
  • 2001: Master of Science, University of Oklahoma, USA

Recent publications by Edward Lemke

Chowdhury A, Kovalenko SA, Aramburu IV, Tan PS, Ernsting NP and Lemke EA (2019) Mechanism-dependent modulation of ultrafast interfacial water dynamics in intrinsically disordered protein complexes. Angew Chemie Int Ed, 58:4720–4724 Link

Rienkemeier CD, Girona GE and Lemke EA (2019) Designer membraneless organelles enable codon reassignment of selected mRNAs in eukaryotes. Science, 363:eaaw2644 Link

Tan PS, Aramburu IV, Mercadante D, Tyagi S, Chowdhury A, Spitz D, Shammas SL, Gräter F and Lemke EA (2018) Two differential binding mechanisms of FG-nucleoporins and nuclear transport receptors. Cell Rep, 22:3660–3671 Link

Fuertes G, Banterle N, Ruff KM, Chowdhury A, Mercadante D, Koehler C, Kachala M, Estrada Girona G, Milles S, Mishra A, Onck PR, Gräter F, Esteban-Martín S, Pappu R V., Svergun DI and Lemke EA (2017) Decoupling of size and shape fluctuations in heteropolymeric sequences reconciles discrepancies in SAXS vs. FRET measurements. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 114:E6342–E6351 Link

Koehler C, Sauter PF, Wawryszyn M, Girona GE, Gupta K, Landry JJM, Fritz MH-Y, Radic K, Hoffmann J-E, Chen ZA, Zou J, Tan PS, Galik B, Junttila S, Stolt-Bergner P, Pruneri G, Gyenesei A, Schultz C, Biskup MB, Besir H, Benes V, Rappsilber J, Jechlinger M, Korbel JO, Berger I, Braese S and Lemke EA (2016) Genetic code expansion for multiprotein complex engineering. Nat Methods, 13:997–1000 Link



Lemke lab website
EMBL website