Christof T. Grewer
Professor; Department Chair
Chemistry
Background
Christof Grewer's long-term research goal is to understand the function, working mechanism and pharmacology of membrane-bound transport proteins. In general, transporters use different energy sources to actively move specific substrates, such as inorganic ions or small, organic molecules, across the membrane into or out of cells.
Recently, significant progress has been made toward the understanding of molecular architecture through the availability of high-resolution structures of several transporters. However, the actual transport mechanism(s), as well as pharmacological means to inhibit transporter function, remain elusive for many of these proteins, in particular for amino acid transporters. The Grewer lab’s aim is to combine functional and structural evidence in order to obtain an understanding of how these transport proteins work and to develop novel, small-molecule inhibitors as pharmacological tools to modulate amino acid transporter function.
Education
- MS, PhD, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University, Germany
Research Interests
- Biophysical chemistry
- Dynamics of the transport process
- Development of pharmacological tools
- Inhibitor synthesis and characterization
- Computational studies
