Pavel Kielkowski awarded Plus 3 Perspectives Programme of Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation

With its Plus 3 funding programme, the Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation aims to support outstanding junior group leaders in Germany conducting basic research in biology, chemistry, and medicine. The award of over 890,000 EUR will provide three years of funding for the research of Pavel Kielkowski on the function of lysosomal proteins in Alzheimer’s disease with the aim to further elucidate the etiology of this devastating disease and provide rationale for small molecule compounds to meet the therapeutic ends.

The function of the cellular recycling machinery is by large carried out by lysosomes and has been closely associated with the Alzheimer’s disease for a long time. However, only recently Pavel Kielkowski’s group has uncovered post-translational modification called AMPylation to specifically influence activity of the lysosomal proteins in neurons. The proposed approach combines interdisciplinary expertise in organic synthesis, mass spectrometry-based proteomics and biochemistry. Pavel’s innovative research in the area of chemical biology of protein post-translational modifications in context of neurodevelopment and neurodegeneration has been thus far recognized and supported by other awards including Liebig Fellowship from Fonds der chemischen Industrie and LMUexcellent Fond. The proposed research will be carried out at the LMU’s newly established Institute of Chemical Epigenetics, which creates an excellent environment to successfully accomplish this project on the boundaries between chemistry and biology.