On February 25 and 26, the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 1164 – SNP2Prot – started with a Kick-off meeting into the first funding period. Over 70 participants from the MLU Halle-Wittenberg, the University of Leipzig (UL), and the IPK in Gatersleben gathered at the Leibniz Institute of Plant Biochemistry (IPB) in Halle for two days of lively and intensive discussions. Marcel Quint, the spokesperson of SNP2Prot, presented his vision of the CRC to make exciting discoveries, foster synergies within and between projects, build a strong community, and establish long-term connections between the different scientific disciplines. The meeting program included exciting talks from PhD students and postdocs, visits of the CryoEM, NMR and proteomics facilities of the CRC, a world cafe with discussion tables and many more activities.
The Künze lab is excited to be part of SNP2Prot. Within this project our PhD student Laura Pilgram uses structural bioinformatics and deep learning to model the impact of nonsynonymous mutations in the whole genome of Arabidopsis thaliana. This will enhance our understanding of evolutionary principles in Arabidopsis and pave the way for designing plant proteins with favorable properties.
