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CeMM Molecular Discovery Platform

Discover bioactive molecules, metabolites, and novel synthetic compounds

The different kinds of biomolecules in our bodies are at the nexus of human health and disease. Some of these molecules can act as biomarkers that report on our health status, others have therapeutic benefits to modulate disease progression. At the CeMM Molecular Discovery Platform, we use a technology-driven approach to empower the discovery and characterization of such bioactive molecules, including proteins, metabolites, and novel synthetic compounds.

These three classes of molecules are also the focus of the three modules that constitute the CeMM Molecular Discovery PlatformProteomics, Metabolomics, and Chemical Screening. Using the latest technologies and state-of-the art instrumentation, we maximize coverage to biomolecules and enable data generation from minimal biological sample amounts.

The platform, with its three sub-facilities, provides services to all groups at CeMM as well as to external customers and thereby intends to contribute initial starting points towards discovering the therapies of the future.

Stefan Kubicek

Head of Molecular Discovery Platform

Biosketch

Stefan Kubicek, born in 1978, is Austrian and joined CeMM in 2010. He obtained an MSc in synthetic organic chemistry from the Vienna University of Technology after writing a diploma thesis at ETH Zurich. For his PhD in Thomas Jenuwein’s lab at the IMP in Vienna, he changed fields to molecular biology and developed the first selective histone methyl transferase inhibitors. He then performed postdoctoral research, working on chemical biology with Stuart Schreiber at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. At CeMM, Stefan Kubicek headed the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Chemical Epigenetics and Antiinfectives, a public-private partnership between CeMM, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Haplogen and is now the head of the CeMM Molecular Discovery Platform. The Kubicek lab is working on the role of chromatin in the definition of cell types and cell states, particularly chromatin-modifying enzymes as synthetic lethal targets in cancer and chemical transdifferentiation to insulin-producing beta cells. In an ERC-funded project, the laboratory studies metabolic enzymes in the cell’s nucleus to test the hypothesis that small molecule metabolites shape chromatin structure and thus control gene expression and cell identity.