Marino Zerial

Marino Zerial, MPI-CBG Dresden Core expertise: molecular design principles of organelle biogenesis, transport and signalling in endocytosis Endocytosis is an essential process serving multiple key cellular functions, such as nutrient uptake, signal transduction, synaptic transmission and defence against pathogens. Alterations in endocytic trafficking lead to developmental defects, metabolic and infection diseases, underscoring the importance of endocytosis for biomedical applications. Our group is interested in the molecular design principles underlying the endocytic pathway and its contribution to signal transduction. To this end we combine experimental and modelling approaches, in collaboration with groups in the Dresden campus (see below).

1. We develop quantitative light microscopy methods to explore the dynamics and function of the endocytic pathway. These assays are scaled up to collect large scale image data of the endocytic pathway under normal conditions and under specific perturbations (e.g. gene knock-down by RNAi) and analyse the organization of the endocytic pathway through a quantitative multi-parametric analysis.

2. We identify novel components of the molecular machinery that governs transport along the endocytic pathway, employing cell biology, biochemical, functional genomics and bioinformatics techniques.

3. Large scale image data are collected to formulate mathematical models that can quantitatively describe and predict endosome transport and signalling activities under different physiological and pathological conditions.

Our research group is a member of the Hepatosys competence network supported by the BMBF to perform a system biology analysis of hepatocytes. See: http://www.systembiologie.de/en/index.html