Doctoral Network on Interfacial Water in Membrane Transport

WATER aims to train 16 PhD students to unravel the multiple roles of interfacial water in biological membranes. They will characterise water mobility and ordering inside membrane receptors, carrier proteins and channels, adjacent to their ligands and lipid bilayers, and in the reaction centres of membrane-bound enzymes, using a broad methodological spectrum including cryo-electron microscopy, simulations, light-spectroscopy and imaging. To assess the functional consequences of water confinement, they will analyze facilitated water and solute transport, chemical reactions inside proteins, ligand-protein interactions, the intraprotein H-bond network, and membrane fusion events, exploiting, e.g., electrophysiology and synthetic chemistry. The results will pave the way for the development of personalised, targeted therapies and more effective drugs and vaccines through improved binding and delivery. Biotechnological applications include artificial channels in biomimetic applications.