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Detail

Christian Gruber
Assoc. Prof. Priv.-Doz. Dr. Christian Gruber, PhDGroup Leader, Principal Investigator

Center for Physiology and Pharmacology
Position: Associate Professor

ORCID: 0000-0001-6060-7048
T +43 1 40160 31390
christian.w.gruber@meduniwien.ac.at

Further Information

Keywords

Amino Acids, Peptides, and Proteins; Ant Venoms; Arginine Vasopressin; Cyclotides; Drug Design; Molecular Pharmacology of Bioactive Peptides from Nature; Multiple Sclerosis; Neuropeptides; Oxytocin; Receptors, Opioid, kappa; Signalling by G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs)

Research group(s)

  • Drug Discovery
    Head: Christian Gruber
    Research Area: Our main research interest is the study of molecular mechanisms in living organisms by employing a toolbox of nature-derived and synthetically optimized peptides with biological activity to be analyzed in vitro and in vivo. The research includes the isolation, structural characterization, design and synthesis of biologically active peptides, which will be useful for drug discovery or as molecular probes.
    Members:

Research interests

Study of molecular mechanisms in living organisms by employing a toolbox of nature-derived and synthetically optimized compounds with biological activity to be analyzed in vitro and in vivo. The research includes the isolation, design and synthesis of biologically active peptides which will be useful for drug discovery or as diagnostic tools.

Techniques, methods & infrastructure

chemical extraction, UPLC/HPLC, peptide synthesis, lyophilization, mass spectrometry, MALDI-TOF/TOF, MALDI imaging, LC-MS/MS, proteomics, peptidomics, transcriptome analysis, insect rearing, GPCR signalling, second messenger analysis (cAMP, IP1, ERK, Ca2+), immunohistochemistry, Western blotting, Molecular Biology

Grants

Selected publications

  1. Muratspahić, E. et al. (2023) ‘Design and structural validation of peptide–drug conjugate ligands of the kappa-opioid receptor’, Nature Communications, 14(1). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-43718-w. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/.
  2. Thell, K. et al. (2016) ‘Oral activity of a nature-derived cyclic peptide for the treatment of multiple sclerosis’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(15), pp. 3960–3965. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1519960113. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/.
  3. Muratspahić, E. et al. (2021) ‘Design of a Stable Cyclic Peptide Analgesic Derived from Sunflower Seeds that Targets the κ-Opioid Receptor for the Treatment of Chronic Abdominal Pain’, Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 64(13), pp. 9042–9055. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jmedchem.1c00158. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/.
  4. Geier, B. et al. (2023) ‘Multiplexed neuropeptide mapping in ant brains integrating microtomography and three-dimensional mass spectrometry imaging’, PNAS Nexus. Edited by B. Li, 2(5). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad144. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/.
  5. Hellinger, R. et al. (2023) ‘Peptidomics’, Nature Reviews Methods Primers, 3(1). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43586-023-00205-2. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/.