Dr. Thomas Fricke

"Structural characterization of gamma-2 herpesvirus glycoprotein entry receptor complexes" We perform in vitro interaction studies, structural studies with recombinantly expressed glycoproteins, and analysis of recombinant KSHV and RRV glycoprotein mutants in virus infection to elucidate the mechanism of cell entry.

"DNA Methylation and Demethylation in Zebrafish" My project is part of the FP7 project “Fishing for Medicines and their targets using Zebrafish models for human diseases” (Fishmed) at IIMCB. We are trying to understand the Cytosine demethylation pathway of DNA in zebrafish in collaboration with the Carl-Philip Heisenberg group at the Austrian Institut of Science and Technology (IST).

The main focus of my work in the Diaz-Griffero lab was to define the HIV-1 uncoating process by using biological and biochemical assays. The laboratory is interested in characterizing proteins that assist uncoating of HIV-1 during replication. My research work was presented twice at the Retroviruses Meeting in Cold Spring Harbor and described in several recent publications, including five first author publications in the leading journals in the field of virology.

My PhD studies in the lab of Professor Rudolf K. Allemann at the Cardiff University, UK aimed at the development of new therapeutic peptide tools for cancer research. In collaboration with the Schools of Pharmacy and Medicine we developed peptides to control cellular processes like apoptosis. The results were presented at several meetings including two international conferences and published in Drug Discovery Today (conference abstract, 2010) and Bioconjugate Chemistry (2011).

In 2011 I worked as a researcher on the HealthProt grant at the IIMCB, laboratory of structural biology in Warsaw on the development of new epigenetic detection method to allow 5-methyl- and 5-hydroxymethylcytosine sequencing.

“Purification and characterization of non structural protein 5A of the hepatitis C virus”

"Single nucleotide polymorphism based genotyping of the human pathogens Streptococcus pneumoniae and Streptococcus agalactiae by qRT-PCR"

"Identification study of proteins that cause muscle hypertrophy in sheep by EMSA"

"Measuring transcription levels of bovine milk proteins by qRT-PCR"

"Quantification of Transcripts in Medicago truncatula by qRT-PCR"

Peptide Sythesis, Organic Synthesis, Molecular Biology, Protein Biochemistry, Cell Culture

Medical Biochemistry, Virology, Immunology, Enzymology