Italian biologist
Markus Ralser (born 3 April 1980 in Vipiteno, Italy) is an Italian biologist. His main research interest is metabolism of microorganisms. He is also known for his work on the origin of metabolism during the origin of life, and proteomics.
Life and career.
Prof. Ralser serves since 2019 as head of the Institute of Biochemistry at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany; as well as since 2022 as group leader at the University of Oxford, UK.
He studied genetics and molecular biology in Salzburg, Austria. He completed his PhD in 2006 at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin, Germany, studying neurodegenerative diseases. This was followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands, where he started to explore mass spectrometry. He returned to the MPI for Molecular Genetics in 2007 to become junior group leader, but in 2011 relocated his group to the University of Cambridge, UK. He relocated again, becoming group leader at the newly opened Francis Crick Institute in London in 2013 (senior group leader since 2019). His group moved to Oxford in 2022.
Research.
Ralser's two research groups use LC–MS to analyze the proteomes and metabolomes of microorganisms. The main model organism is the baking yeast ("Saccharomyces cerevisiae"), but other species, such as pathogenic fungus "Candida albicans" and the fission yeast "Schizosaccharomyces pombe", are used too.
His lab not only uses LC–MS, but also develops novel LC–MS methods and protocols that improve detection accuracy, speed, and throughput. Specializing in data-independent acquisition, the group has developed scanning SWATH MS and Zeno SWATH MS in collaboration with MS manufacturer SCIEX. Both methods greatly improve upon SWATH MS, which was developed in Switzerland in 2012. The group additionally developed an acquisition method—DIA-NN—that uses neural networks. But proteins and metabolites are not the only focus: in 2022 the lab developed a protocol for the accurate quantification of DNA methylation using LC–MS.
Key research topics include:
During the COVID-19 pandemic the Ralser group developed a proteomics panel assay for the assessment of disease severity and for the prediction of outcome. The assay quantifies 50 peptides derived from 30 proteins found in a patient's blood plasma. The lab found that these proteins can serve as markers: their abundance strongly correlates with COVID-19 severity and outcome. The assay can be performed at a routine clinical laboratory, and has become commercially available.
As of January 2023, Ralser has published nearly 200 peer-reviewed articles that have been cited more than 13,000 times.
References.
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