A prestigious ERC Synergy Grant worth 9.4 million euros has been awarded to the research groups of Prof. Sander Tans from research institute AMOLF, Prof. Bernd Bukau from Heidelberg University, and Prof. Nenad Ban from the ETH. The team aims to elucidate a new mechanism to explain how protein complexes are formed – the complex molecules that execute all main biological functions. Prof. Tans holds a professorship at Delft University of Technology.

Protein complexes are essential to all cellular processes, yet their formation is also an extremely sensitive process that is prone to failure. Indeed, protein misfolding and aggregation are thought to underpin most non-infectious diseases and ageing. Rapidly accumulating findings now suggest that multiple ribosomes actively work together to orchestrate when and where different proteins come together. The research team expects that this coordinated process enables unprecedented protein production capabilities and indicates a wide spectrum of yet unknown regulatory mechanisms in cells.

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