Proteomics
The research area Proteomics focuses on the analysis of proteins and peptides in biological data. Proteins are the essential building blocks for cellular function in every living organism. Mass spectrometry has become the main experimental technique to study the proteome in biological samples. In-depth analysis of the proteome allows researcher to develop a better understanding of biological processes and aids in the creation of new strategies for diagnosis and therapy of diseases that arise from abberant cellular function such as cancer.
Since 2011 our research group has focused on computational proteomics using data from mass spectrometry experiments. We work in close collaboration with our partners at the Mechtler group of the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) at the Vienna BioCenter. Our work has led to the development of several novel algorithms for protein identification from mass spectrometry data:
- MS Amanda database search engine specifically designed for high resolution data sets and perfectly suited for identifcation chimeric spectra
- MS Ana spectral library search engine which identifies proteins and peptides using previously identified spectra to achieve high sensitivity results
- MS Annika cross linking search engine for cleavable cross-linking identification using MS2 and MS3 data
