Guido Bommer

Major achievements

• Prix Vicomtesse Valine de Spoelberch (2022)
• WELBIO Starting Grant
• ERC consolidator grant

Questions

• Can we resolve the remaining mysteries of cellular metabolism and its impact on cellular signaling?
• Are there undiscovered/obscure/unexplored/unfamiliar biochemical mechanisms explaining pathophysiology?
• Can we find/elucidate undiscovered/obscure/unexplored/unfamiliar biochemical pathways explaining human health and diseases?

Research focus

Exploring the Intricacies of Cellular Metabolism: Unveiling new mechanisms of disease.

At the core of life lie chemical reactions that we collectively call metabolism. Enzymes drive most of these reactions, organized into pathways that were discovered in the past century. While textbooks imply we've uncovered all cellular metabolic enzymes, reality differs: Enzymes with unknown functions remain, and some enzyme roles have been misinterpreted. Additionally, certain chemical reactions occur without enzymes, yet significantly impacting human health and aging.

Guido Bommer and his team are dedicated to investigating these lesser-known aspects of cellular metabolism, uncovering novel mechanisms behind various human diseases, ranging from cancer to neurodegeneration. Their approach combines mass spectrometry, genetics, and classical enzymology techniques. While their research often starts with a specific idea, projects sometimes take unexpected turns, leading to findings far from the initial hypotheses.

Recently, this has led to the elucidation of the biogenesis of novel post-translational modifications involved in neuromuscular diseases (i.e. ribitolphosphorylation) and Parkinson's disease (i.e. N-glyceroylation and N-phosphoglyceroylation).

Guido Bommer graduated in Medicine from the University of Munich, Germany. After some time in clinical practice and a research fellowship in the laboratory of Eric Fearon at the University of Michigan, he obtained a PhD at the Université Catholique de Louvain. Since 2011, he is a permanent researcher of the Belgian National Research Fund (FNRS) and Professor at UCLouvain, Brussels. Between 2021 and 2023, he was visiting Professor at the University of Parma, and in 2022 he held the Bauchau Chair at the University of Namur. His lab is generously supported by (among others) a WELBIO Starting Grant and an ERC Consolidator Grant.

Honors

• Prix Vicomtesse Valine de Spoelberch (2022)
• WELBIO Starting Grant
• Chaire Bauchau 2022 at University of Namur
• ERC consolidator grant
• Angry birds level 3 master

Affiliations

• Group Leader, de Duve Institute
• Professor, UCLouvain
• Senior Research Associate, F.R.S.-FNRS
• Investigator, WELBIO Department, WEL Research Institute