Christiane Berger-Schaffitzel
Structural biologist who uses cryo-electron microscopy to study ribosomes and translation machinery; co-senior author of the first cryo-EM structure of yeast TORC2.
Professor of Biochemistry, University of Bristol (since 2014) · Team leader, EMBL Grenoble (from 2007) · Postdoc and lecturer, ETH Zurich (from 2001)
Berger-Schaffitzel Lab, School of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences, University of Bristol (Bristol, England, United Kingdom) ↗ ORCID0000-0002-1516-9760 ↗
Portrait: University of Bristol
Christiane Berger-Schaffitzel is a professor of biochemistry at the University of Bristol. She did her doctoral work at the University of Zurich, then worked at ETH Zurich and led a team at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Grenoble from 2007 before moving to Bristol in 2014. She also leads the GW4 Cryo-EM Facility.
The 2017 study in the Atlas was a joint effort with Robbie Loewith's group in Geneva. They used electron cryo-microscopy to solve the structure of TORC2 from baker's yeast, a complex of six proteins shaped like a rhombohedron.
The structure showed that the Avo3 protein (the yeast version of Rictor) covers the spot where the rapamycin-FKBP12 complex would bind. This explains why TORC2 is not blocked by rapamycin. It also showed how another subunit sits near the active site and may help recruit substrates.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | M | Cryo-EM structure of Saccharomyces cerevisiae target of rapamycin complex 2 KAR2017 Solved the cryo-EM structure of yeast TORC2, explaining its rapamycin insensitivity through Avo3 covering the FKBP12-rapamycin binding site; Schaffitzel was last author, co-corresponding with Robbie Loewith. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 2
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Christiane Berger-Schaffitzel.
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- Manikandan Karuppasamy Structural biologist who used cryo-electron microscopy at EMBL Grenoble to solve the first structure of yeast TORC2, explaining why it resists rapamycin
- Robbie Loewith Showed, as first author in Michael Hall's lab, that yeast TOR exists as two distinct complexes, the basis of the TORC1/TORC2 framework
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