Lambertus van den Berg, Ph.D.

Research

Biological membranes form the interface between cells and their environment. Transport of molecules across the membrane barrier is essential for all cells (e.g. for metabolite supply). As a consequence, many (human) diseases, with cystic fibrosis as the best-known example, are caused by mutations in membrane transport proteins. Unfortunately, our understanding of how these proteins carry out their tasks is still rather limited. To date only ~200 unique membrane protein structures have been deposited in the Protein Data Bank. We are interested in determining the 3D structures of bacterial outer membrane proteins by X-ray crystallography. Those structures are then used, in combination with functional data obtained from biochemical experiments, to propose mechanistic models that can be tested experimentally.