Kathrin Lang

Scientific Report on TUM-IAS Fellowship 

The Focus Group for Synthetic Biochemistry was part of the TUM-IAS family from April 2014 until April 2020, during which time I was a Rudolf Mößbauer Fellow at the TUM-IAS and appointed as a W2 Tenure Track Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at TUM. In April 2020 I was tenured as a W3 Associate Professor at TUM, and since April 2021 I am Full Professor for Chemical Biology at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. full report

Short CV

Professor Lang studied chemistry at the University of Innsbruck where she obtained a PhD in bioorganic chemistry under the supervision of Professor Micura in 2008. She subsequently worked as a postdoctoral and investigator scientist at the Medical Research Council – Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, in the research groups of Dr. Ramakrishnan (ribosome crystallography) and Professor Chin (chemical and synthetic biology). She now heads the synthetic biochemistry research group in the Chemistry Faculty.


Selected Awards

  • 2012, Anton Paar Science Award of the Austrian Chemical Society, GÖCH
  • 2012, MRC Centenary Early Career Award, Medical Research Council – Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK
  • 2010, Young Investigator Award of the Zonta Club Bolzano/Bozen, Italy
  • 2009, Karl Schlögl Award of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, ÖAW
  • 2009, Georg and Christine Sosnovsky Award, Innsbruck, Austria

Research Interests

Professor Lang (b. 1979) conducts research in the interdisciplinary area of chemical biology, applying concepts from organic chemistry to develop new tools to study fundamental biological questions. Her research focuses on the targeted chemical synthesis of new artificial biomolecules (amino acids, proteins, nucleotides, oligonucleotides) tailored to investigate and manipulate complex cellular processes in in vitro and in vivo biological systems.


Selected Publications

  • Lang, Kathrin; Davis, Lloyd; Wallace, Stephen; Mahesh, Mohan; Cox, Daniel J.; Blackman, Melissa L.; Fox, Joseph M.; Chin, Jason W.: Genetic Encoding of Bicyclononynes and trans -Cyclooctenes for Site-Specific Protein Labeling in Vitro and in Live Mammalian Cells via Rapid Fluorogenic Diels–Alder Reactions. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 134 (25), 2012, 10317-10320.
  • Lang, Kathrin; Davis, Lloyd; Torres-Kolbus, Jessica; Chou, Chungjung; Deiters, Alexander; Chin, Jason W.: Genetically encoded norbornene directs site-specific cellular protein labelling via a rapid bioorthogonal reaction. Nature Chemistry 4 (4), 2012, 298-304.
  • Ng, C Leong; Lang, Kathrin; Meenan, Nicola A G; Sharma, Amit; Kelley, Ann C; Kleanthous, Colin; Ramakrishnan, V: Structural basis for 16S ribosomal RNA cleavage by the cytotoxic domain of colicin E3. Nat Struct Mol Biol 17 (10), 2010, 1241-1246.
  • Lang, Kathrin; Erlacher, Matthias; Wilson, Daniel N.; Micura, Ronald; Polacek, Norbert: The Role of 23S Ribosomal RNA Residue A2451 in Peptide Bond Synthesis Revealed by Atomic Mutagenesis. Chemistry & Biology 15 (5), 2008, 485-492.
  • Lang, K.; Rieder, R.; Micura, R.: Ligand-induced folding of the thiM TPP riboswitch investigated by a structure-based fluorescence spectroscopic approach. Nucleic Acids Research 35 (16), 2007, 5370-5378.

Publications as TUM-IAS-Fellow

2019

  • Fottner, Maximilian; Brunner, Andreas-David; Bittl, Verena; Horn-Ghetko, Daniel; Jussupow, Alexander; Kaila, Ville R. I.; Bremm, Anja; Lang, Kathrin: Site-specific ubiquitylation and SUMOylation using genetic-code expansion and sortase. Nature Chemical Biology 15 (3), 2019, 276-284 mehr… BibTeX Volltext ( DOI )
  • Hohl, Adrian; Mideksa, Yonatan G; Karan, Ram; Akal, Anastassja; Vogler, Malvina; Groll, Michael; Rueping, Magnus; Lang, Kathrin; Feige, Matthias J; Eppinger, Jörg: Genetically encoded biotin analogs: Incorporation and application in bacterial and mammalian cells. ChemBioChem, 2019 mehr… BibTeX Volltext ( DOI )
  • Lang, Kathrin: Installing Terminal-Alkyne Reactivity into Proteins in Engineered Bacteria. Biochemistry 58 (24), 2019, 2703-2705 mehr… BibTeX Volltext ( DOI )
  • Mayer, Susanne V.; Murnauer, Anton; von Wrisberg, Marie-Kristin; Jokisch, Marie-Lena; Lang, Kathrin: Photo-induced and Rapid Labeling of Tetrazine-Bearing Proteins via Cyclopropenone-Caged Bicyclononynes. Angewandte Chemie International Edition 58 (44), 2019, 15876-15882 mehr… BibTeX Volltext ( DOI )
  • Reille-Seroussi, Marie; Mayer, Susanne V.; Dörner, Wolfgang; Lang, Kathrin; Mootz, Henning D.: Expanding the genetic code with a lysine derivative bearing an enzymatically removable phenylacetyl group. Chemical Communications 55 (33), 2019, 4793-4796 mehr… BibTeX Volltext ( DOI )

2018

  • Cigler, Marko; Nguyen, Tuan-Anh; Lang, Kathrin: CHAPTER 5.2. Genetic Code Expansion Approaches to Introduce Artificial Covalent Bonds into Proteins In Vivo. In: Oxidative Folding of Proteins. Royal Society of Chemistry, 2018 mehr… BibTeX Volltext ( DOI )
  • Nguyen, Tuan-Anh; Cigler, Marko; Lang, Kathrin: Expanding the Genetic Code to Study Protein-Protein Interactions. Angewandte Chemie International Edition 57 (44), 2018, 14350-14361 mehr… BibTeX Volltext ( DOI )

2017

  • Cigler, Marko; Müller, Thorsten G.; Horn-Ghetko, Daniel; von Wrisberg, Marie-Kristin; Fottner, Maximilian; Goody, Roger S.; Itzen, Aymelt; Müller, Matthias P.; Lang, Kathrin: Proximity-Triggered Covalent Stabilization of Low-Affinity Protein Complexes In Vitro and In Vivo. Angewandte Chemie International Edition 56 (49), 2017, 15737-15741 mehr… BibTeX Volltext ( DOI )
  • Lang, Kathrin: Building Peptide Bonds in Haifa: The Seventh Chemical Protein Synthesis (CPS) Meeting. ChemBioChem 19 (2), 2017, 115-120 mehr… BibTeX Volltext ( DOI )
  • Lang, Kathrin: Biochemie 2016: Chemie bringt Zellen im Innern zum Leuchten. Nachrichten aus der Chemie 65 (3), 2017, 305-309 mehr… BibTeX Volltext ( DOI )

2016

  • Jiao, Lei; Lang, Kathrin: The 6th Sino-German Frontiers of Chemistry Symposium. Chemistry - An Asian Journal 11 (23), 2016, 3292-3296 mehr… BibTeX Volltext ( DOI )
  • Lang, Kathrin; Mayer, Susanne: Tetrazines in Inverse-Electron-Demand Diels–Alder Cycloadditions and Their Use in Biology. Synthesis 49 (04), 2016, 830-848 mehr… BibTeX Volltext ( DOI )
  • Mayer, Susanne; Lang, Kathrin: Chemie in lebenden Systemen. Nachrichten aus der Chemie 64 (3), 2016, 301-305 mehr… BibTeX Volltext ( DOI )

2015

  • Machida, Takuya; Lang, Kathrin; Xue, Lin; Chin, Jason W.; Winssinger, Nicolas: Site-Specific Glycoconjugation of Protein via Bioorthogonal Tetrazine Cycloaddition with a Genetically Encoded trans-Cyclooctene or Bicyclononyne. Bioconjugate Chemistry 26 (5), 2015, 802-806 mehr… BibTeX Volltext ( DOI )
  • Tsai, Yu-Hsuan; Essig, Sebastian; James, John R.; Lang, Kathrin; Chin, Jason W.: Selective, rapid and optically switchable regulation of protein function in live mammalian cells. Nature Chemistry 7 (7), 2015, 554-561 mehr… BibTeX Volltext ( DOI )
  • Uttamapinant, Chayasith; Howe, Jonathan D.; Lang, Kathrin; Beránek, Václav; Davis, Lloyd; Mahesh, Mohan; Barry, Nicholas P.; Chin, Jason W.: Genetic Code Expansion Enables Live-Cell and Super-Resolution Imaging of Site-Specifically Labeled Cellular Proteins. Journal of the American Chemical Society 137 (14), 2015, 4602-4605 mehr… BibTeX Volltext ( DOI )

2014

  • Elliott, Thomas S; Townsley, Fiona M; Bianco, Ambra; Ernst, Russell J; Sachdeva, Amit; Elsässer, Simon J; Davis, Lloyd; Lang, Kathrin; Pisa, Rudolf; Greiss, Sebastian; Lilley, Kathryn S; Chin, Jason W: Proteome labeling and protein identification in specific tissues and at specific developmental stages in an animal. Nature Biotechnology 32 (5), 2014, 465-472 mehr… BibTeX Volltext ( DOI )
  • Lang, Kathrin; Chin, Jason W.: Bioorthogonal Reactions for Labeling Proteins. ACS Chemical Biology 9 (1), 2014, 16-20 mehr… BibTeX Volltext ( DOI )
  • Lang, Kathrin; Chin, Jason W.: Cellular Incorporation of Unnatural Amino Acids and Bioorthogonal Labeling of Proteins. Chemical Reviews 114 (9), 2014, 4764-4806 mehr… BibTeX Volltext ( DOI )
  • Lang, Kathrin; Davis, Lloyd; Chin, Jason W.: Genetic Encoding of Unnatural Amino Acids for Labeling Proteins. In: Site-Specific Protein Labeling. Springer New York, 2014 mehr… BibTeX Volltext ( DOI )
  • Perez-Fernandez, Déborah; Shcherbakov, Dmitri; Matt, Tanja; Leong, Ng Chyan; Kudyba, Iwona; Duscha, Stefan; Boukari, Heithem; Patak, Rashmi; Dubbaka, Srinivas Reddy; Lang, Kathrin; Meyer, Martin; Akbergenov, Rashid; Freihofer, Pietro; Vaddi, Swapna; Thommes, Pia; Ramakrishnan, V.; Vasella, Andrea; Böttger, Erik C.: 4′-O-substitutions determine selectivity of aminoglycoside antibiotics. Nature Communications 5 (1), 2014 mehr… BibTeX Volltext ( DOI )
  • Wang, Kaihang; Sachdeva, Amit; Cox, Daniel J.; Wilf, Nabil M.; Lang, Kathrin; Wallace, Stephen; Mehl, Ryan A.; Chin, Jason W.: Optimized orthogonal translation of unnatural amino acids enables spontaneous protein double-labelling and FRET. Nature Chemistry 6 (5), 2014, 393-403 mehr… BibTeX Volltext ( DOI )