Get to know: Jun.-Prof. Matthias Gehringer

Matthias Gehringer works at the intersection of medicinal chemistry, chemical biology, and drug targeting approaches. Specifically, he and his group are focusing on inhibitors of protein kinases, a class of enzymes which is crucially involved in the signal transduction of tumor cells. The rationale for the inhibition of kinase enzymes is the fact that many tumors differ from normal cells through mutation or amplification of genes resulting in aberrant protein kinase activity. 

Protein kinases have become extremely important drug targets within the last two decades with now around 70 inhibitors approved for clinical use, mostly for cancer. However, a significant fraction of the >500 protein kinases remains underexplored and this "dark kinome" offers a large, untapped potential for the development of novel treatments. Typically, kinase inhibitors are only administered to patients once the genetic driver of the disease has been identified. Therefore, kinase inhibitors are a good example for personalized medicine. To be useful as drugs or “chemical probes” required for mechanistic studies and target validation, protein kinase inhibitors need to have very high potency and good selectivity. 

Matthias Gehringer's group aims to address these challenges by covalent targeting of amino acids like cysteine, lysine, or tyrosine. Besides boosting potency and selectivity, this approach increases drug-target residence time, which can give rise to superior clinical efficacy. We hope that Matthias Gehringer and his group continue to enjoy their research within iFIT!