Prof. Dr. Kaspar Locher

Research area

The research focus of Kaspar Locher and his group is the structural and mechanistic investigation of integral membrane proteins facilitating active transport processes or membrane-associated glycosyltransferase reactions. By combining high resolution structure determination with in vitro and cellular functional studies and biophysical investigations, mechanistic insight into target proteins is obtained. In 2006, the Locher group determined the first structure of a multidrug ABC transporter. In 2011, the group reported the first structure of an oligosaccharyltransferase, a membrane-integral enzyme with a key role in protein N‑glycosylation. In the past few years, The Locher group has used single particle cryo-EM to determine structures of the human multidrug and lipid ABC transporters (ABCB1, ABCB4, ABCG2) and of eukaryotic oligosaccharyltransferase complexes.