Prof. Dr. Rudolf Glockshuber

Rudolf Glockshuber has been Full Professor of Molecular Biology at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biophysics at the ETH Zurich since January 2000. From April 1994 to March 1997 he was tenure track Assistant Professor and from April 1997 to December 1999 Associate Professor at the same institute.

Prof. Glockshuber was born on September 18, 1959 in Munich, Germany. He studied chemistry at the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich and received his doctorate in 1989 under Professor E.L. Winnacker and Dr. A. Plückthun at the Gene Center of the University of Munich with a dissertation on recombinant antibody fragments. From January 1990 to March 1994 he received a research grant from the German Research Society to work as a scientific assistant at the Institute for Biophysics and Physical Biochemistry at the University of Regensburg under Professor R. Jaenicke.
His work focused on the catalysis of protein folding, enzyme/inhibitor interactions, energy-dependent proteases and proteins from the eye lens.

His present research at the ETH Zurich concentrates on:

a) Structural and functional characterization of enzymes catalyzing disulfide bond formation during protein folding.

b) the assembly of macromolecular protein complexes, using bacterial type 1 pili as a model system. Type 1 pili are highly oligomeric protein complexes at the bacterial surface that enable pathogenic bacteria to bind to host cells.

c) the thermodynamics and kinetics of protein folding.

d) the mechanism of amyloid formation.

Prof. Glockshuber is adjunct professor at the A.N. Belozersky Institute of Moscow State University and member of EMBO and the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina.