Bridging borders in science: Q&A with Einstein Visiting Fellow Nevan Krogan, PhD

Infectious disease, autism and autoimmune disorders will be at the core of a new initiative being launched by the UCSF Quantitative Biosciences Institute (QBI) and Freie Universität Berlin (FUB) — an effort backed by the recent appointment of Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences professor Nevan Krogan, PhD, as an Einstein Visiting Fellow. 

Christian Freund, PhD, Nevan Krogan, PhD, and Freie Universität Berlin President Günter Ziegler, PhD

As part of the Einstein Foundation’s award, which gives six researchers in four programs a total of 4.2 million euros over the next five years, Krogan, who is QBI’s director, will establish a lab in Berlin to deepen scientific collaboration between the two institutions. 

And while the award was initially tied to a proposal focused on studying epilepsy and investigating how the influenza virus takes over human cells, Krogan said that the goals of the partnership are broader: to create a disease-agnostic, technology-driven pipeline for understanding and treating disease. 

As research funding in the United States becomes increasingly constrained, we asked Krogan about how fostering cross-border cooperation contributes to a more interdependent and resilient global research network. 

Tell us about the Einstein Foundation's decision to fund this project, and what it means for QBI. 

[FUB Professor of Biochemistry] Christian Freund was on sabbatical here at UCSF in 2018 and we talked about initiating deeper collaborations between QBI and FUB. There’s a lot of synergy between both places, with strengths focused on technology, biochemistry, biophysics and structural biology, which led to our joint symposium in Berlin in 2019, a successful first event.  

The idea was to go back and forth with symposia, but because of the pandemic, we went virtual in 2020 with our Integrative Structural Biology Trainees Workshop. In the interim, we were able to distribute grants to help facilitate and push along collaborations that had been started in Berlin. We were finally able to get back together in 2024 for our Integrative Mechanistic Biology Meeting here at UCSF, and one of the questions was, “How do we keep these relationships going?” 

This Einstein visiting fellowship is not just an award, it’s funding to establish a lab in Berlin for four years. We’ve already hired our first scientist there, and we’re in talks to establish a joint center that will represent a “Berlin-San Francisco scientific axis.” 

What are the core technologies behind this platform? 

One big push we're doing here at QBI and at UCSF is on integrative structural proteomics. It involves mass spectrometry combined with cryo EM (cryo electron microscopy) and cryo ET (cryo electron tomography). We’re weaving together structural biology-based approaches with AI and machine learning (ML) approaches. 

Research collaborators from the QBI delegation, FUB and Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie (FMP).

UCSF is at the forefront of the technology development in those areas, and Berlin is particularly strong in crosslinking hydrogen/deuterium exchange (HDX) mass spectrometry. We want to show how these complementary areas of expertise can be integrated by some of the best scientists in the world, working together across the oceans to get insights across many different disease areas. 

Why was influenza the initial focus of the proposal, and how did it evolve? 

We focused our collaborative efforts on influenza because there have been people working on that here and there, but it’s really about the technology and what we apply it to. It’s about showing how these tools, when put together in a more integrative way, can get at a deeper, mechanistic understanding of molecular processes and disease biology. 

Given the climate of what’s happening with science in the United States, it’s exciting that these relationships that we’ve been fostering over many years can now bear fruit. The European scientists are really excited to step up and strengthen ties. 

Is the goal ultimately to advance discovery of novel drug targets? 

The hope is that this research will have therapeutic value that we could be exploiting with mechanisms we’ve been building up here at UCSF. First, we want to demonstrate how this integrated approach can be done — combining the best tools and scientists across continents. And second, we hope to gain real biological insights that could lead to new drug targets and therapies. The potential for translational impact is huge, especially as we refine the discovery pipeline across multiple disease areas. 

What are some of the challenges this research presents, and how will global cooperation shape its potential impact? 

Because we’re all trying to connect structural biology with proteomic-based approaches, we have the same challenges here and there with trying to integrate different technologies together in the most effective way possible. 

One big issue is data sharing. We’re collecting similar data, but more thought has to be put into databases and whether there are mechanisms where the data can be shared more effectively. I have no doubt that we'll be able to overcome it so that everybody can see everybody’s data as soon as possible. 

I think this project will be another example of how collaboration can push science forward. I’m a big believer that getting great minds together and focusing on the same problem — looking at it from different angles — is where big breakthroughs come through. 

Like QBI, the Einstein Foundation in Berlin is known for cross-disciplinary and cross-institutional science and research at an international level. What are some of the advantages to be gained from this collaboration? 

I think the AI componentry here in the Bay Area is stronger than what exists in Germany, so as far as that computational component, I think we can bring a lot to the table. 

I would say maybe in Berlin, and Europe across the board, the environment is often more hypothesis-driven and traditional. Here in the United States, it's a little bit more exploratory and unbiased — the Wild West mentality, which is the kind of science that I'm attracted to. 

It’s just different ways of doing science but having both is key. And with this bridge that we've set up through this Einstein Visiting Fellow award, we'll be able to bring both approaches together very effectively, by working together, breaking down silos and focusing on hard problems. I think we need to lean into collaborations around the world even more now to get the best science done. 

More 

• QBI and Freie Universität Berlin Collaborate Under the Einstein Visiting Fellowship (video) 

• Krogan Q&A: Collaboration and the new era of science 

• Krogan elected to the European Molecular Biology Organization 

• UCSF Quantitative Biosciences Institute and Institut Pasteur form center to fight infectious disease