ERC Starting Grant for Thorben Cordes

Thorben Cordes (Single-molecule Biophysics, Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, Faculty of Science and Engineering) will study an important class of transport proteins, known as ABC transporters, the working mechanism of which is as yet unknown. He will do so using single-molecule fluorescence microscopy, a technique closely linked to the discovery that won this year’s Nobel prize for chemistry. ABC transporters are present in most living cells and transport nutrients and other vital substances across the cell membrane. Understanding the way these transport systems work could help to design drugs against pathogenic microorganisms, identify alternative therapies for drug-resistant cancer cells, or treat health problems related to ABC transporters. Cordes’s group recently published one of the first single-molecule papers on ABC transporters in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology , in collaboration with the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Groningen.