The Chemical Biology-laboratory under the guidance of Dr. Richard Wombacher is part of the Max-Planck-Institute for Medical Research, Department of Chemical Biology. The research of our laboratory focuses on the development of chemical tools to study biological processes. This approach is multidisciplinary, utilizing organic synthesis, molecular biology techniques and biophysical methods. The central goal of our research is to extend the power of synthetic chemistry to complex biological systems. One of our major interests is the development of methods for the selective labeling and imaging of biomolecules (e.g. proteins) with small molecule probes inside living cells. This will lead to the development of new and powerful methods that allow to observe and manipulate dynamic biological processes in living cells. Current projects explore the application of “chemical tags” in fluorescence labeling and super-resolution microscopy, the development of small peptide tags and chemical tools for protein regulation.