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Professorship for Cell Biology

Prof. Dr. Boris Pfander

Technische Universität Dortmund
Fakultät für Chemie und Chemische Biologie
DOLCE
Otto-Hahn-Str. 6
44227 Dortmund

Room: C1-06-733

E-Mail: boris.pfandertu-dortmundde
Phone: +49 231 755 6748
 

Secretary
Petra Alhorn
Room: C1-06-732
E-Mail: petra.alhorntu-dortmundde
Phone: +49 231 755 6747

 

Portrait Boris Pfander © Ralf Maserski​/​TU Dortmund

News

06/05/24
Our first Dortmund M.Sc. student joins the lab. Welcome Caitlyn Agar, we are looking forward to your research.


30/05/24
Last day in the lab for Lorenzo Galanti. We will miss you dearly, but we are excited to see your research on Genome Stability continue in the Boulton lab at the Francis Crick Institute, London, UK.


05/04/24
Our new work lead by Lorenzo Galanti is out in Nat Commun. New function of DDK in regulating HR and DSB resection in budding yeast and human cells. Check it out here Nature and fine more info in CCB-News  or on "X". This was a fantastic collaboration with the labs of Lorraine Symington at Columbia University, New York, USA and Petr Cejka at IRB Bellinzona, Switzerland.


20/02/24
Anxious moments for everybody as we moved the lab from Martinsried to Dortmund. But… the move was smooth sailing. Big thank you to everybody involved.


01/01/24
Dr. Juan de Dios Barba Tena joins the lab. We look forward to you spearheading our research on DNA replication.


13/09/23
Today starts the 6th German-French DNA repair meeting in Mainz organized by Tom Hoffmann and Petra Beli. Such a great opportunity for the German and French DNA Repair communities to exchange. Lorenzo will give a talk on cell cycle control of resection and represent the lab.


01/09/23
We are very excited to join TU Dortmund within the framework of the Dortmund Life Science Center (DOLCE) and the faculty of chemistry and chemical biology. Boris is now the professor of cell biology. Stay tuned.


19/07/23
Leo’s paper on one of our favourite nucleosome remodellers – Fun30 – reports the discovery of its SAM key domain is out now in Life Science Alliance. Fantastic collaboration with the Duderstadt, Kurat, Bartke and Hopfner labs.

12/04/23
We just learned that the German Research Council (DFG) will continue to support our efforts on “Consequences of unscheduled replication” and the project will go into a second funding period.


06/04/23
Wow – Kalle, Leo and I are very proud to be part of this fantastic discovery by the Kurat lab out now in Nature. This paper gives key mechanistic insights into the establishment and function of chromatin organization at replication origins.


09/12/22
Still out this year is this super interesting study from the Hopfner lab, which describes how the INO80 nucleosome remodellers reads out extranucleosomal DNA. Very happy that Susi, Markus and I could contribute some genetics.


18/11/22
Big paper out from the lab in Nature Communications. With support from the rest of the team Kalle Reusswig could investigate genetic systems that allow DNA replication to occur in the G1 phase of the cell cycle and how the generate genome instability. Great in house collaboration at MPIB with Michael Wierer and Matthias Mann and with very valuable efforts from Benjamin Pardo.


09/04/22
Lorenzo presented his new work on the control of DNA end resection at the DGDR-Krupp 2022 Symposium “DNA Repair and Human Disease” and was awarded the DGDR poster prize. Congratulations.


02/02/22
Our recent grant proposal to reconstitute and manipulate double strand break repair was approved for funding by the German Research Council (DFG)!


12/01/22
Our new review on nucleosome remodelling and DNA double strand break repair is online. Very happy to be part of the Research Topic: "Protecting the Code: DNA Double-Strand Break Repair Pathway Choice".


11/01/21
Lorenzo Galanti successfully defended his PhD thesis today. Well done Dr. Galanti - go celebrate!


09/12/21
The 11th Munich Chromatin Day is a virtual chromatin morning, but packed full of exciting science. Leo Karl presents his new insights into the Fun30/SMARCAD1 nucleosome remodeller.


01/09/21
Great to see a fantastic story by the Kurat lab out in Nature Communications. Very happy that Kalle and I could be part of this and help the project.


03/07/21
Martina Peritore was awarded by the MPIB with the 2021Junior Scientist Publication Award for her outstanding work on nucleosome remodelling at DNA double-strand breaks. Congratuliations, Martina, to this fantastic achievement.


01/03/21
We use a strand-specific ChIP-seq workflow to determine whether a protein binds - at sites of DNA double strand breaks - to ssDNA or dsDNA in vivo and were able to show that nucleosomes are not retained on ssDNA, but rather that their eviction is coupled to DNA end resection. Our work is online now at Mol Cell.


29/01/21
Julia Bittmann successfully defended her PhD thesis today. Congratulations Dr. Bittmann - well deserved.


13/11/20
Of course it would have been very nice to celebrate the 5th German-French DNA repair meeting in person. But what a fantastic two days we spend in the virtual with terrific, new science. Also, congratulations to the lab's own Lorenzo Galanti for winning one of three awards for best flash-talk presentation.


03/09/20
We are very pleased to have been part of a fantastic collaboration with the Beck and Kosinski lab and see all efforts come to fruitition. The work on in-cell architecture of the nuclear pore and snapshots of its turnover appeared now in Nature. It nicely expands the concepts from previous work by Kenny Lee and Florian Wilfling and beautifully visualizes turn-over of nuclear pores.


21/08/20
Very proud to see Pfander Lab's first ever Azubi Sandra Mitzkus receiving the Max Planck Society Apprentice Price. Congratulations Sandra and our best wishes for your future. We are sure you will become a kick-ass biochemist!


03/07/20
The MPIB awarded Julia Bittmann with the 2020 Junior Scientist Publication Award for her work on the cell cycle tag technology and the control of nucleases during homologous recombination. Congratuliations, Julia, very proud.


03/07/20
Another JSPA will go to Chia-Wei Lee and Florian Wilfling. Congratulations to them and all awardees.


07/05/20
Our recent grant proposal received funding from the German Research Council (DFG) and will allow Dr. Kalle Reusswig to continue his work on unscheduled DNA replication.


06/05/20
Our new paper on cell cycle tag technology is now online at eLIFE. The advanced cell cycle tag toolbox allows cell cycle restriction with adjusted protein expression and is showcased on the example of cell cycle control of structure-selective endonucleases! Fantastic work - Julia