Schur Group

Virus, Cell and Tissue Architecture

Numerous biological properties are governed by architectural and structural principles that depend on the higher-order, three-dimensional organization of biomolecules. This is manifested, for example, in the cytoskeleton, extracellular matrix, genome architecture, and viral assembly.

How this organization is established, maintained, and dynamically adapted remains incompletely understood, largely due to the limited ability to study biomolecules within their native interaction networks at sufficient spatial resolution.

Developing and integrating advanced structural and cell biology methods is therefore essential to elucidate how molecular organization gives rise to complex biological functions. The Schur Lab develops such integrative approaches using cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET), and advanced image processing to uncover how molecular assemblies shape the architecture of viruses, cells, and tissues.

Our research focuses on intra- and extracellular filamentous assemblies—including the actin cytoskeleton and the extracellular matrix—which are central to cell migration, tissue organization and maintenance. We also investigate how protein–protein interactions define virus assembly and infection pathways, which are often governed by distinctive geometrical and structural principles. We place particular emphasis on pleomorphic viruses such as retroviruses and poxviruses.

More recently, through the EvoChromo project, we have begun to explore the evolutionary emergence of genome architecture.