Peer-Hendrik Kuhn

Short CV

Peer-Hendrik Kuhn studied medicine from 2001 until 2008 at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich. During his medical studies he was a scholarship holder of the Molecular Medicine program of LMU. He joined the laboratory of Christian Haass at the Adolf-Butenandt-Institute to study the role of proteases in Alzheimer’s disease. His state examination in medicine in 2008 was followed by the granting of a medical doctorate in 2009. After his medical studies, he joined the Medical Life Science and Technology program of the Technische-Universität München (TUM) and as well as the German Center of Neurodegenerative Diseases within the Hemholtz Association (DZNE) in Munich. In 2012 he received his doctorade. He has been a Carl von Linde Junior Fellow at TUM-IAS since the middle of 2013.

Selected Awards

2003-2005, Stipend of the Molecular Medicine MD program (FöFoLe of Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich)

Research Interests

In the past Peer-Hendrik Kuhn worked on the neurodegenerative disorder Alzheimer’s disease. During his research he especially focused his efforts on developing novel methods to answer important biological questions in the field. He developed a novel method called Secretome protein enrichment with click sugars (SPECS) which involves mass spectrometry, metabolic labeling of cells and bioorthogonal chemistry to analyze the secretome of primary cortical neurons. This in the end allowed the identification of substrates of the aspartylprotease BACE1 which is intimately linked to the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease due to its initiative role in the generation of the neurotoxic peptide Aβ. Now that he has received the Carl von Linde Junior Fellowship he wants to develop this method further and apply it to other scientific fields like neoplasias of the hematopoietic system. This will allow a better understanding of cancer biology and additionally aid biomarker identification. Additionally these results might aid in therapeutic decisions in the near future. Furthermore he plans to develop additional methods which allow analyzing secreted and cell surface proteins directly from patient specimens.

Selected Publications

• Kuhn, Peer-Hendrik; Koroniak, Katarzyna; Hogl, Sebastian; Colombo, Alessio; Zeitschel, Ulrike; Willem, Michael; Volbracht, Christiane; Schepers, Ute; Imhof, Axel; Hoffmeister, Albrecht; Haass, Christian; Roßner, Steffen; Bräse, Stefan; Lichtenthaler, Stefan F: Secretome protein enrichment identifies physiological BACE1 protease substrates in neurons. The EMBO Journal 31 (14), 2012, 3157-3168.

• Kuhn, Peer-Hendrik; Wang, Huanhuan; Dislich, Bastian; Colombo, Alessio; Zeitschel, Ulrike; Ellwart, Joachim W; Kremmer, Elisabeth; Roßner, Steffen; Lichtenthaler, Stefan F: ADAM10 is the physiologically relevant, constitutive α-secretase of the amyloid precursor protein in primary neurons. EMBO J 29 (17), 2010, 3020-3032.

• Kuhn, P.-H.; Marjaux, E.; Imhof, A.; De Strooper, B.; Haass, C.; Lichtenthaler, S. F.: Regulated Intramembrane Proteolysis of the Interleukin-1 Receptor II by -, beta-, and -Secretase. Journal of Biological Chemistry 282 (16), 2007, 11982-11995.

• Friedmann, Elena; Hauben, Ehud; Maylandt, Kerstin; Schleeger, Simone; Vreugde, Sarah; Lichtenthaler, Stefan F.; Kuhn, Peer-Hendrik; Stauffer, Daniela; Rovelli, Giorgio; Martoglio, Bruno: SPPL2a and SPPL2b promote intramembrane proteolysis of TNFα in activated dendritic cells to trigger IL-12 production. Nature Cell Biology 8 (8), 2006, 843-848.