STW OTP grant for Rainer Bischoff

Prof. Rainer Bischoff, analytical biochemistry group of GRIP, enjoyed success in the recent awarding of grants in the STW Technology Foundation Open Technology Programme (OTP). The STW OTP is one of the instruments used by the STW that enables scientists and industry to work together.

Bischoffs proposal, Nanopatterned Electrode Surfaces for Proteomics, Drug Screening and Synthesis, is a collaborative project together with Dr.ir. M. Odijk of the UTwente. The idea of the project is to study electrochemical surface processes by in situ spectroscopy (SERS, NIR) and product formation by mass spectrometry. This will be the third STW grant in a row with the goal of studying oxidative drug metabolism, the conversion of added value chemicals and last not least the electrochemical, oxidative cleavage of the peptide bond C-terminal to Try and Trp (the electrochemical protease). Especially the latter processes are not well understood and require detailed in situ studies to correlate the reaction mechanism with product formation. To this end UTwente will design nanopatterned surfaces with different electrode materials and the researchers in the group of Bischoff will couple these devices to high-resolution mass spectrometry to follow product formation as well as to capture and analyze short-living intermediates. Together this should give more insight into the reaction mechanism and hopefully allow to improve yield and product purity.

The grant comprises 2 PhD positions (one in Twente and one in Groningen) and one shared 3 year postdoc position. Part of the grant is financed by industry.