Christian Behrends was born in Frankfurt, Germany. He studied Biology at the University of Konstanz and obtained his diploma degree in 2001 after completing his diploma thesis in the lab of M. Ehrmann at the Cardiff School of Bioscience, Cardiff, UK. He then joined the department of F.-U. Hartl at the Max-Planck-Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried for his doctoral work. During his PhD, he worked on the proteotoxicity of polyglutamine expansion proteins. He graduated summa cum laude from the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. In 2007, he received a Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship from the Humboldt Foundation to joined the lab of J. W. Harper at the Harvard Medical School in Boston. During his post-doctoral studies he became interested in autophagy and
performed a systematic analysis of this fundamental cellular homeostasis pathway by employing complementary proteomics, genetics and biochemical approaches. In 2010, he became an independent group leader at the Institute of Biochemistry II at the Medical Faculty of the Goethe University Frankfurt. His lab is interested in various aspects of autophagy. In particular, his group aims at determining the dynamic organization of autophagy signaling complexes and their regulation by posttranslational modifications in response to different physiological conditions.
Invited speaker, FEBS Practical Course on Protein Interaction Modules, Split, Croatia
2010
Invited speaker, Harden conference on Autophagy, Cirencester, UK
2010
Invited speaker, Red Sea Science Center workshop at KAUST, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia
2009
Invited speaker, EMBO conference on Autophagy, Ascona, Switzerland
2009
Invited speaker, CSHL meeting on The Ubiquitin Family, Cold Spring Harbor, USA
2007
Poster presentation, Jacques-Monod conference: Protein Misfolding, Roscoff, France
2006
Poster presentation, EMBO-FEBS conference on Amyloid Formation, Florence, Italy
2005
Poster presentation, GBM on Molecular Machines, Mosbach, Germany
Publications
Behrends C. & Harper J.W. Constructing and decoding unconventional ubiquitin chains. Nat Struct Mol Biol. 18: 520-8 (2011).
Behrends C., Sowa M. E., Gygi S. P., and Harper J. W. Network organization of the human autophagy system. Nature 466: 68-76 (2010).
2nd Anniversary Collaboration Meetingat Millennium, the TakedaOncology Company, in Cambridge, USA, January 29, 2010. "A network view on autophagy."
Behrends C., Langer C. A., Boteva R., Böttcher U. M., Stemp M. J., Schaffar G., Rao B. V., Giese A., Kretzschmar H., Siegers K., and Hartl F. U. Chaperonin TRiC promotes the assembly of polyQ expansion proteins into nontoxic oligomers. Molecular Cell 23: 887-897 (2006).
Schaffar G., Breuer P., Boteva R., Behrends C., Tzvetkov N., Strippel N., Sakahira H., Siegers K., Hayer-Hartl M., and Hartl, F. U. (2004). Cellular toxicity of polyglutamine expansion proteins: Mechanism of transcription factor deactivation. Molecular Cell 15: 95-105 (2004).
Harnasch M., Grau S., Behrends C., Dove S. L., Hochschild A., Iskandar M. K., Xia W., and Ehrmann M. Characterization of presenilin-amyloid precursor interaction using bacterial expression and two-hybrid systems for human membrane proteins. Molecular Membrane Biology 21: 373-383 (2004).
Stefanie Nühlen
Stefanie Nühlen studied Molecular Biotechnology at Bielefeld University. She did her master thesis at the institute of cellculturetechnology with Prof. Thomas Noll as head of Institute. Her master thesis had been "Proteome-analysis of the influence of insulin and sodium dichloroacetate on the Pyruvate-Dehydrogenase-Multienzymecomplex (PDC) in AGE1.hn-cells". In March 2011 she started her PhD in the autophagy signaling group of Dr. Christian Behrends at the Institute of Biochemistry II at the Medical Faculty of the Goethe University Frankfurt. Her work focuses on the role of TBC domain-containing proteins in autophagy.
PhD student in the group of Prof. Dr. Christian Behrends, Institute of Biochemistry II, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main
2005-2010
Molecular Biotechnology, Bielefeld University
Bachelor Thesis
2008
Bachelor of Science in Molecular Biotechnology at Faculty of Technology, in the Cell Culture Technology Group of Prof. Dr. Thomas Noll , Title: "Methods of isolation and 2DE-Gel-Illustration of the secretome of the eukaryotic precursor-cellline AGE1.hn"
Master Thesis
2010
Master of Science in Molecular Biotechnology at Faculty of Technology, in the Cell Culture Technology Group of Prof. Dr. Thomas Noll , Title: "Proteome-analysis of the influence of insulin and sodium dichloroacetate on the Pyruvate-Dehydrogenase-Multienzymecomplex (PDC) in AGE1.hn-cells"
Daniela Stadel
Daniela Stadel studied Biology at the University (KIT) in Karlsruhe. She did her diploma thesis at the Department of Tumor Progression and Immune Defense at the Experimental Surgery in the University Medical Center of Heidelberg with the main focus on tumor-derived exosomes and their target structures.
In April 2011 she started her PhD in the group of Christian Behrends.
Currently she studies the cargos, regulators and adpators of autophagosomes.
Biology studies at the University of Karlsruhe (KIT)
2010
Diploma thesis at the Department of Tumor Progression and Immune Defense of the Experimental Surgery in the University Medical Center, Heidelberg
Since 2011
PhD-Student at the Institut of Biochemistry II, J.W. Goethe University Medical Center in the Autophagy signalling group of Christian Behrends
Heide Marika Genau
Heide Marika Genau studied human biology at the Philipps University in Marburg with main focus on cell biology and biochemistry. She did her diploma thesis in the group of Prof. Dr. Roland Lill at the Institute for Cell biology in Marburg working on the cytosolic iron sulfur cluster assembly machinery. In October 2011 she started her PhD in the autophagy signaling group of Dr. Christian Behrends at the Institute of Biochemistry II at the Medical Faculty of the Goethe University Frankfurt where she currently studies the regulation of autophagy induction.
PhD student in the group of Dr. Christian Behrends, Institute of Biochemistry II, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main
10/2006 –07/2011
Studies of human biology, University of Marburg (Germany)
10/2010 – 07/2011
Diploma thesis in the group of Prof. Dr. Roland Lill, Institute for Cell biology, Philipps University, Marburg (“Characterization of the Fe/S cluster ligands of the CIA protein Dre2”)
François Le Guerroué
François Le Guerroué studied Biochemistry and Biotechnology in the Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France where he graduated for a research master degree in Structural Biology. He did his master thesis at the Institute of Pharmacology and Structural Biology, Toulouse, France, under the supervision of Dr Muriel Golzio. There, he studied the effects of electropermeabilisation on the vascular permeability.
In January 2012, he started his PhD in the group of Christian Behrends at the Institute of Biochemistry II at the Medical Faculty of the Goethe University Frankfurt, where he his studying two ubiquitin-like conjugation systems implicated on autophagy.
