The Department of Proteomics and Signal Transduction, is headed by Prof. Dr. Matthias Mann, one of the pioneers of mass spectrometry-based proteomics, who has made landmark contributions to the development of the electrospray ionization technology (awarded the Noble Prize for Prof. Dr. Mann’s advisor John Fenn in 2002) and who has made mass spectrometry applicable to molecular biology. The department works in proteomics technology development and performs successfully global large-scale proteomic studies applied to different biological questions and medical fields. The laboratory has proved its capability to identify and measure proteins with high resolution and fast peptide sequencing speeds in routine proteomic applications. Another development of equal impact has been the introduction of quantitation into proteomics, as well as the rigorous statistical treatment of peptide and protein identification results.

The Mann lab is a technical leader in the field of mass spectrometry and has pioneered the deeper coverage of proteomes for over two decades. Recently, the group set a focus on clinical relevant topics. In this line, they unlocked the analysis of the human blood and its components. The establishment of a robust, reproducible and automated high-throughput proteome profiling pipeline for the analysis of whole blood, plasma and serum samples allows the screening of large clinical cohorts for new biomarkers. To illustrate that ‘Plasma Proteome Profiling’ is applicable to large-scale studies, they analysed the first cohort with over 1,000 separately prepared and measured plasma proteomes.

In the Department of Proteomics and Signal Transduction are currently 15 postdoctoral fellows and 8 PhD students. The Mann department is an undoubted place for postdoctoral training and acquisition of proteomics skills. Today it is one of the most important laboratories where a new generation of mass spectrometers and biologist using mass spectrometry are being trained.

Matthias Mann´s group is involved in a large number of international collaborations, including various efforts supported by the European Commission. For example, Prof. Dr. Mann was the coordinator of the "large scale Collaborative Project" PROSPECTS (HEALTHF4- 2008-201648), the major proteomics project in FP7, and is a PI in the ERC Synergy Grant ToPAG (318987).

Prof. Dr. Matthias Mann has an exceptional record of internationally recognized research and has authored and co-authored more than 600 publications with a total citation count of almost 200,000 (h-index of 211), making him one of the most highly cited researchers worldwide.