Prof. Dr. Blanche Schwappach-Pignataro

In the mid-1990s, the biologist specialized in membrane biology began her scientific career at UKE with a doctorate at the Center for Molecular Neurobiology Hamburg, where she returned in 2020 as a Professor of Molecular Biology. Her passion for biochemical and cell biological work on membrane proteins and transport processes led her to the University of California, San Francisco, as a postdoc in 1997 before moving to the Center of Molecular Biology at Heidelberg University as a junior research group leader in 2000, where she also habilitated in 2004. From 2007, she was a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer at the University of Manchester before accepting a position at the University Medical Center Göttingen in 2010, where she became Professor of Biochemistry and Director of the Institute of Molecular Biology.

Blanche Schwappach-Pignataro's work investigates membrane protein biogenesis, i.e. membrane protein incorporation into the membrane or their targeted transport, and its dysfunction that can lead to disease. She discovered a new class of localization signals directing proteins to the endoplasmic reticulum, a complex membrane network in the cell where protein synthesis takes place, and discovered an additional function of a GET pathway enzyme, which is important for protein stability.

The well-connected biochemist and molecular biologist has been in charge of a number of DFG-funded collaborative projects and is also active in various scientific societies and committees. As a member of the Academy of Sciences in Hamburg, the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), among others, Blanche Schwappach-Pignataro contributes to shaping scientific discourse and to the evolution of the scientific system.