Arbeitsgruppe Batra-Safferling
Research Interests
Structural biology, X-ray crystallography, biophysical characterization of the signaling components of the visual signal transduction pathway, protein-ligand interactions using SH3-domain containing proteins, blue-light photoreceptors of the LOV family, natively unfolded proteins, protein aggregation using dynamic light scattering and CD spectroscopy.
Experimental Approach
The primary focus of our research is to understand the structure-function relationships of soluble and membrane proteins of biological importance. Our approach remains to conduct these studies with techniques that allow a complete dissection of kinetic and structural properties of the proteins in static and dynamic states. The functional and thermodynamic properties on wild-type and modified forms of the macromolecules generated by site-directed mutagenesis are studied extensively using transient and steady-state kinetics, as well as selected biophysical techniques. The functional information is then combined with the three-dimensional structure determined by X-ray crystallographic techniques.