Project selected for DFG Priority Programme
A research project by Khaled Selim has been selected under the DFG's Priority Programme and will be funded for three years.
The German Research Foundation (DFG) has announced the funded projects under the Priority Programme "Emergent Functions of Bacterial Multicellularity" (SPP 2389).
Khaled Selim, CMFI Principal Investigator, will receive three years of funding for his research project under the first phase of the program.His project, "On the Different Roles of 2nd Messenger(s) Signaling in Cyanobacteria Multicellularity," will investigate cell signaling and cell biology of multicellular cyanobacteria and their intracellular communication system. The focus is on regulatory mechanisms of second messenger signaling and the structure of signal transduction proteins involved in the differentiation processes of heterocysts and akinetes. State-of-the-art techniques in protein biochemistry, structural biology and omics approaches (proteomics, metabolomics, genomics and transcriptomics) will be used.
About the Priority Programm SPP 2389
Differentiated, transiently stable bacterial consortia are widely distributed, and exhibit astounding multicellular traits that go way beyond what their unicellular state could explain, including (i) the tissue-like biophysical properties of biofilms and colonies, (ii) the ways in which bacterial cells are connected with each other to exchange, communicate, synchronise, and coordinate their efforts, and (iii) multicellular traits and behaviours that cannot occur in planktonic cells, such as programmed cell death, spatial signalling, and spatial metabolism. Identifying and characterising these emergent multicellular functions are the centre around which this Priority Programme revolves. The programme will focus on two central aspects:
- the physiological benefits and molecular mechanisms of the emergent functions as the driving forces of bacterial multicellularity;
- the architecture, dynamics and biophysical properties of the multicellular forms as the structural framework from which a multicellular function can emerge.
Dr. Khaled Selim
Interfaculty Institute of Microbiology and Infection Medicine
Auf der Morgenstelle 28
D-72076 Tübingen, Germany
Tel.: +49 7071 29-74627
E-Mail: khaled.selim
@uni-tuebingen.de
Leon Kokkoliadis
Public Relations
Tel: +49 7071 29-74707
E-Mail: leon.kokkoliadis@uni-tuebingen.de
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