About us

Bacteria rule the world! They pervade every aspect of human society and the natural world. Many bacteria are our friends and essential for our health, for example, in the form of our gut microbiome. Other bacteria are our enemies, and the rise of antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest global health threats humankind will face in the years to come. In terms of their genomes, scientists have already heavily explored bacteria worldwide. On the other hand, bacterial proteomes are way less studied, even though proteins are the main executors of biological function and, therefore, directly control bacterial behavior, resistance, and adaptations.

The Ludwig group aims to develop and apply state-of-the-art proteomic technologies to advance our knowledge of bacteria, their interactions with the environment, and their impact on human health. For that, we are developing and optimizing mass spectrometric workflows that allow us to:

• rapidly and accurately quantitate bacterial proteomes under diverse growth conditions;
• qualitative and quantitative analysis of plant proteomes;
• study how bacteria adapt and respond to external stressors and drugs;
• identify post-translational regulations in bacteria;
• investigate how bacteria interact with their environment, including humans, other bacteria, viruses, and plants;
• last but not least, perform peptidomics approaches to investigate the plant and bacterial peptidome.