What Can't Be Missing From Your Project, Laxmikanth Kollipara?

Dortmund, 30th May 2025

Dr Laxmikanth Kollipara stands in the laboratory holding a silver-coloured column. In the background are HPLC systems. — Dr Laxmikanth Kollipara is a staff scientist in the Lipidomics junior research group. He is holding an object that is particularly important for his work in the PIPMet project.

© ISAS / Hannes Woidich

“In this picture I am holding a chiral stationary phase column which is widely used to separate enantiomers, meaning molecules that are non-superimposable mirror images of each other. This commercially available column has been designed for specific chiral separation needs and plays a crucial role in our collaborative research project »PIPMet – Phosphoinositides in Metabolic Disease«. Together with our collaborators at the Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie (FMP) and the German Institute for Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbrücke (Deutsches Institut für Ernährungsforschung Potsdam-Rehbrücke, DiFE), we aim to find out if the altered signaling of phosphoinositides (PIPs), a type of membrane lipids, underlies metabolic disease and related disorders like obesity and diabetes. However, since the seven regioisomers of PIPs differ in their phosphorylation pattern and fatty acyl chains, their separation and accurate profiling remains technically challenging with conventional liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS) analysis.

To address this, we are currently implementing a chiral chromatography approach at ISAS using specialised columns like the CHIRALPAK^® IB-U by Daicel and CHIRAL ART Cellulose-SB by YMC, paired with high-resolution mass spectrometry. The IB-U column is currently installed on our ultra-high-performance LC-system which is coupled to an Orbitrap Exploris mass spectrometer. By employing chemical derivatisation of PIP standards and optimizing LC conditions, we successfully enhanced the resolution of the regioisomers, building upon and improving previously published methods. With these promising results, we are confident in applying this method to diverse biological samples, including genetically modified cell lines, isolated organelles, and tissues from obese mouse models, and thereby resolving the unmet questions within our PIPMet project.”

Podcast recommendation: PIPMet - Interview with Prof Dr Volker Haucke

In the podcast ‘Wirkstoffradio’, host Bernd Rupp talks to Prof Dr Volker Haucke, one of the directors and head of the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Cell Biology at the Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie im Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V. (FMP) about PIPMet.

(German episode)

To the podcast

(Protocol: Cheyenne Peters)

Further articles

Separating Fluorescence Signals Faster and More Precisely with AI

When different fluorescence signals overlap during microscopy, their clear assignment to specific biological structures becomes difficult. To address this common problem, Dr Davide Panzeri is developing AI-based signal separation methods. The biophysicist has been awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship by the European Union for his promising research project.

Passionate Research, Shaping the Future

How do GRK5 inhibitors work at the cellular level and within the living organism? Biologist Dr Susanne Grund is working with her colleagues at HI-FIVE on a new therapeutic approach for heart failure. In this portrait, she describes what her day-to-day work looks like, balancing research on human stem cells with studies on mice.

ISAS BFF Uploader

What are you doing at ISAS, Theresa?

Why do mice undergo ultrasound examinations of their hearts? What does a typical working day in the lab involve for a technical assistant in the HI-FIVE research project ? And what challenges does the job present? Theresa Pietz provides fascinating insights into her duties, motivations and experiences working with animals.

Study with Heart: A Doctor Bridging Clinic & Laboratory

What is actually happening behind the scenes of a patient trial? Anna Ruzhyna is a clinical research associate who looks after participants with heart failure as part of the HI-FIVE project. She explains how her work helps to develop new therapeutic approaches for the treatment of heart failure.

Laboratory Meets Clinic: Understanding Heart Function with Stem Cells

How can new therapeutic approaches for heart failure be developed more effectively? Stem cell research plays a central role in the HI-FIVE project. In this interview, PD Dr Anna Klinke (Herz- und Diabeteszentrum NRW) talks about her work between the lab and the clinic. She explains how the versatility of stem cells enables heart and vascular cells to be obtained from individual patients' blood and why this is an important step in investigating the specific effects of new active substances.

What are you doing at ISAS, Kevin?

What changes take place in heart muscle cells when a left ventricular assist device is used? ISAS doctoral student Kevin Hau (28) is tackling this question by researching the consequences of heart attacks using various omics analyses.

Copenhagen: Different Molecules, New Perspectives?

Felix Hormann is spending three months conducting research at the University of Copenhagen. In this interview, the ISAS doctoral student discusses the new perspective he has gained on his lipid research and his exciting day-to-day life as a scientist in Denmark.

Felix Hormann is standing at a crossroads. In the background, there is a traffic sign with writing in Danish.

New Perspectives for Heart Failure Therapy

How are new therapeutic approaches being developed to close the gap in the treatment of patients with heart failure? And what knowledge from clinical practice is crucial for this? Prof. Dr Tanja Rudolph provides insights into her daily work as a cardiologist and talks about her role in the translational research project HI-FIVE, and the future of cardiovascular disease therapy.