Home – Martin Fischer Research

Genome Regulation by Tumor Suppressors and Oncoproteins

We conduct biomedical research at the interface of molecular biology, molecular genetics, and computational biology. Our research interests and expertise focus on genome regulation and molecular oncology. We study the control of proliferation of normal cells and cancer cells to understand the molecular basis of mechanisms that serve as critical barriers to cancer. Gene regulatory networks have central roles in the control of cell fate, and our investigations are helping to unravel their precise function. [read more…]

Our lab is located at the Leibniz Institute on Aging – Fritz Lipmann Institute (FLI) in Jena, Germany, and we are part of the Senior Research Group of Professor Steve Hoffmann.

I am a staff scientist and head the wet lab activities of the Hoffmann research group. I am a biochemist by training, with doctoral degrees in biology and molecular oncology and a habilitation in molecular medicine.

My motivation for science in general is best described by a quote from Marie Curie, which has also become a mantra of mine: “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”

Schwab K, Riege K, Coronel L, Stanko C, Förste S, Hoffmann^# S, Fischer^# M (2024) p53 target ANKRA2 cooperates with RFX7 to regulate tumor suppressor genes. Cell Death Discov. 10: 376
Fischer^# M, Sammons^# MA (2024) Determinants of p53 DNA binding, gene regulation, and cell fate decisions. Cell Death Differ. 31 (7): 836–843
Fischer^# M (2024) Gene regulation by the tumor suppressor p53 – The omics era. BBA Rev. Cancer 1879 (4): 189111
Schwab K, Coronel L, Riege K, Sacramento EK, Rahnis N, Häckes D, Cirri E, Groth M, Hoffmann S, Fischer^# M (2023) Multi-omics analysis identifies RFX7 targets involved in tumor suppression and neuronal processes. Cell Death Discov. 9: 80
Fischer^# M, Riege K, Hoffmann S (2023) The landscape of human p53-regulated long non-coding RNAs reveals critical host gene co-regulation. Mol. Oncol. 17 (7): 1263-1279
Fischer# M (2023) Physiological media advance cell culture experiments. Trends Biochem. Sci. 48 (2): 103-105

>>> All Publications

November 2024| Martin has been awarded the 2024 BBA Rising Stars in Biochemistry and Biophysics prize. This biennial award, presented by the Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) journal family, recognizes exceptional early-career researchers in biochemistry and biophysics who contribute innovative and promising research with the potential to shape the field’s future. His invited Mini-review published in BBA Reviews on Cancer was instrumental in securing this honor.
November 2024| Gupse attended the 27th Meeting on Signal Transduction in Weimar and gave a talk on the potential role of RFX7 in the differentiation of myeloid cells.
October 2024| Sandra Fischer and Linus Blochinger, master students in Molecular Medicine, joined our lab to work on their Master’s theses. Welcome to the team, Sandra and Linus!
October 2024| Jonas Mewes submitted the Bachelor’s thesis he prepared in our lab. Congratulations, Jonas! We wish him all the best for his future endeavors.
September 2024| Kati has been awarded an Add-On Fellowship for Interdisciplinary Life Science from the Joachim Herz Foundation. Congratulations, Kati!
August 2024| Kati and Martin attended the Dornburg Cancer Talks. Kati gave a talk on our findings that the tumor suppressor RFX7 can be activated pharmacologically. Martin co-chaired one of the conference sessions.
August 2024| Cell Death Discovery published our study in which we uncover that the p53 target ANKRA2 is an important cofactor of the transcription factor and tumor suppressor RFX7. ANKRA2 binds together with RFX7 to X-box promoter motifs and cooperates with RFX7 in regulating its target genes.
July 2024| Kati was selected to participate in the 23rd Young Scientist Forum (YSF) in Pavia, Italy, which took place alongside the 48th annual FEBS Congress in Milan. She presented her recent research findings on the mechanisms that regulate the activity of the understudied tumor suppressor RFX7 in a flash talk and poster.
June 2024| Cell Death and Differentiation has published a review article in which Morgan Sammons and I discuss our current understanding of what determines where the tumor suppressor p53 binds to genomic DNA, how it regulates transcription, and how this p53 signaling affects cell fate decisions, such as whether to live on or die. This is yet another result of a terrific collaboration.
May 2024| At our annual institute retreat, Martin gave a talk on our findings of unexpected cooperativity between convergent promoters, Kati presented a poster on her data on novel RFX7 interacting proteins and won the best poster award, and Lukas was awarded a travel grant to attend and present his data on gene regulation during cell cycle entry.
May 2024| BBA Reviews on Cancer has published our Mini-Review in which we discuss how the era of omics technologies has shaped our understanding of gene regulation by the tumor suppressor p53.
April 2024| Kati gave a talk on the potential of activating the transcription factor and tumor suppressor RFX7 to treat cancer at the Leibniz Conference on Bioactive Compounds.
April 2024| Jonas Mewes, a Bachelor student in Biology, joined our lab to work on his Bachelor’s thesis. Welcome to the team, Jonas!
February 2024| Martin attended the 5th Central German Meeting on Bioinformatics and gave a talk on our findings of unexpected cooperativity between convergent promoters.
February 2024| With the support of the German Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (GBM), BIOspektrum published a short article highlighting our research.
January 2024| Omid Omrani joined us as a postdoc. Welcome to the team, Omid!

December 2023| Martin gave a talk on our research at the Berlin Institute of Health of the Charité University Hospital.
October 2023| Kati presented our research findings on the p53-RFX7/ANKRA2 signaling pathway through a talk at the 26th Meeting on Signal Transduction in Weimar.
October 2023| Martin gave a talk on our research at the University Hospital in Greifswald.
October 2023| Lukas Grein, a Master’s student in Molecular Medicine, joined our lab to pursue his Master’s thesis. Welcome to the team, Lukas!
September 2023| Carla Ziegler submitted the Master’s thesis she prepared in our lab. We wish her all the best for her future endeavours.
September 2023| Martin joined the CHARMANDER consortium meeting at the University Medical Center in Amsterdam and gave an overview talk on our research. Thank you Jeroen Guikema for the invitation, it has been a very pleasent and immensely interesting exchange!
September 2023| Martin attended the 2nd Jena RNA Club Symposium and gave a talk on our recent research on cooperativity between convergent promoters. The findings are also available through a preprint.
September 2023| We said farewell to our guest professor Morgan Sammons. It was a pleasure to host you, Morgan. We enjoyed the insightful discussions and look forward to meet again!
September 2023| Martin co-organized the 2023 Add-On fellow and alumni meeting of the Joachim Herz Foundation. We welcomed almost 60 young scientists at the Leibniz-HKI and FLI in Jena and enjoyed together scientific talks and insights into third party funding, academic careers, and start-ups.
September 2023| We highlighted recent work on the p53 and MYC-regulated squalene epoxidase (SQLE) throug a commentary in the International Journal of Biological Sciences. SQLE appears to be an Achilles heel in colorectal cancer that could be exploited therapeutically using the FDA-approved SQLE inhibitor Terbinafine.
July 2023| Kati presented our research findings on the p53-RFX7/ANKRA2 signaling pathway through a talk at the New Horizons in Signal Transduction meeting in Göttingen and has been awarded a travel grant.
July 2023| Morgan Sammons is visiting us a guest professor during his sabbatical. We are looking forward to inspiring discussions and fruitful collaboration projects!
July 2023| Kanstantsin Siniuk joined us a postdoc. Welcome to the team Kanstantsin!
June 2023| Martin presented our work on the transcription factor and tumor suppressor RFX7 through a talk at the Cancer Center Central Germany Science Seminar
May 2023| We contributed to the Trends Talk series in Trends in Biochemical Sciences sharing our thoughts on generating informative illustrations that help to describe cellular processes.
March 2023| In our study published in Cell Death Discovery, we identified novel target genes of the understudied transcription factor RFX7 that provide promising links to its roles as a tumor suppressor and potential neuronal regulator.
March 2023| Gupse Özcan joined us as a PhD student. She is a joint member of our group and Tino Schenk’s and a member of the IZKF Graduate Programme Experimental Medicine within the Jena School of Molecular Medicine (JSMM). Welcome to the team, Gupse!
February 2023| Molecular Oncology published our study in which we identify the landscape of human p53-regulated lncRNAs using our meta-analysis approach. We identified the mechanisms by which p53 regulates many lncRNAs and discovered host gene co-regulation as a novel means of gene regulation employed by p53.
February 2023| We received funding from the Leibniz Institute on Aging – Fritz Lipmann Institute (FLI) through the SPARK-FLI scheme to support technology transfer through our project “Identification of RFX7-activating compounds”.
February 2023| Martin presented our research through a talk at the 38th TBI Winterseminar in Bled, Slovenia.

December 2022|Our review article on the coordination of gene expression during the cell cycle has been selected as cover story by Trends in Biochemical Sciences.
October 2022| Kati presented our research findings on the p53-RFX7/ANKRA2 signaling pathway through a talk at the annual Postgraduate Symposium of the Jena School of Molecular Medicine (JSMM) in Jena.
October 2022| Carla Ziegler, a Master’s student in Molecular Medicine, joined our lab to pursue her Master’s thesis. Welcome to the team, Carla!
September 2022| Kati and Martin attended the 2nd Summer Workshop of the Cancer Center Central Germany (CCCG) in Dornburg. Kati presented our research findings on the p53-RFX7/ANKRA2 signaling pathway through a talk and Martin chaired one of the sessions.
September 2022| Together with Christine Blattner, we hosted the 3rd German p53 Workshop at the FLI and were happy to welcome scientists from across the country who presented their latest research related to the transcription factor and tumor suppressor p53. Kati and Martin presented our results on the p53-RFX7 signaling axis and the function of closely spaced promoters through talks.
September 2022| Trends in Biochemical Sciences published our Forum article (mini-review) in which we highlight the potential benefits of physiological cell culture media and how they helped us to resolve differences between mouse models and human cell lines.
July 2022| Our review on the regulatory mechanisms that govern perodic gene expression during the cell cycle has been published by Trends in Biochemical Sciences. The article resulted from a terrific collaboration with James DeCaprio, Amy Schade, Timothy Branigan, and Gerd Müller.
July 2022| Trends in Genetics published our Opinion article in which we review the synthesis of genome regulation data through meta-analyses with an emphasis on vote-counting approaches. The avalanche of omics data generated in the past years provides an opportunity to validate results, make new discoveries, and extract powerful genomic signatures. Vote-counting-based procedures can help to improve the interpretability and ultimately lower the bar for life scientists to score and rank results.
May 2022| Kati and Martin presented our research findings on the p53-RFX7 signaling pathway and our updated web resource (www.TargetGeneReg.org) through a talk and a poster at the 18th International p53 Workshop at the Weizman Institute of Science in Israel.
April 2022| Kati and Martin attended the DGDR-KRUPP 2022 Symposium “DNA repair and human disease” in Jena and presented our research findings on RFX7 and its role in the DNA damage response through a talk and a poster.
March 2022| NAR Cancer published our manuscript describing the upgrade of our web-atlas at www.TargetGeneReg.org that provides information on target genes regulated by the tumor suppressor p53, its oncogenic sibling p63, the novel tumor suppressor RFX7, and the cell cycle.
January 2022| Martin gave an overview talk on our research at the University Hospital in Greifswald.
January 2022| We have been granted funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) for our project “Mapping the indirect p53 gene regulatory network“.
January 2022| Anna-Lena Bohm joined us as a PhD student. She is a joint member of our group and Tino Schenk’s and a member of the IZKF Graduate Programme Experimental Medicine within the Jena School of Molecular Medicine (JSMM). Welcome to the team, Anna!

December 2021| In our paper published in Oncogene, we show that p53 requires the emerging tumor suppressor RFX7 to inhibit the crucial pro-survival kinases AKT and mTOR. Using novel physiological cell culture media, we uncover a role for basal p53 and RFX7 in restricting mTORC1 activity, highlighting the benefits physiolocial media offer to obtain research results that may be more relevant to mammalian physiology.
December 2021| Our web-atlas on target genes regulated by the tumor suppressor p53 and the cell cycle at www.TargetGeneReg.org has received a major update. TargetGeneReg 2.0 now includes many more datasets, non-coding genes and targets of the transcription factors deltaNp63 and RFX7. A preprint of our manuscript describing the upgrade is available through bioRxiv.
August 2021| We said farewell to Luis Coronel and David Häckes. We will miss them and we wish them all the best for their future endeavours.
July 2021| We have been granted funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) for our project “Deciphering p53-regulated alternative transcription and splicing“.
July 2021| Our review on the interaction between the tumor suppressor p53 and it’s oncogenic sibling p63 has been published in Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology. Another result from a terrific collaboration with Morgan Sammons and his team. We discuss how a sibling rivalry between p53 and p63 was fueled by early findings, but recent genome-wide data suggest that they are more likely to cooperate at the chromatin rather than to antagonize each other. The most pressing open question remains with regard to the context that both p53 and p63 require to regulate gene expression when they bind to any genomic locus.
July 2021| Our work on the emerging tumorsuppressor RFX7 has been published in Nucleic Acids Research. Through a terrific team work, we uncovered the novel p53-RFX7 signaling axis and characterized the RFX7-regulated transcriptiome in three human cell systems, providing insights to the regulation and functional repertoire of the understudied transcription factor RFX7.
June 2021| We have been granted funding from the Carl Zeiss Foundation within the Jena School of Molecular Medicine (JSMM) for our PhD project “UV Laser ChIP-assisted identification of RFX7 target genes controlling the myeloid differentiation blockade in AML” in collaboration with Tino Schenk.
May 2021| Martin gave an overview talk on our research at the University Hospital Jena.
March 2021| Katjana Schwab joined us as a PhD student after she completed her Master’s thesis with us. Welcome to the next level, Kati!
February 2021| David Häckes and Katjana Schwab submitted their Master’s theses that they prepared in our lab. Congratulations!
January 2021| Martin gave an overview talk on our research during the 2nd Research Day of the Cancer Center Central Germany online.

December 2020| We published a database on the gene regulatory network of the transcription factor p63, a key oncogene in squamous cell carcinomas, and compared it to the gene regulatory network of its sibling the tumor suppressor p53.´
It was a great publishing experience with eLife, which was a little different to the publishing process of other scholarly journals. We are very thankful for the editors’ enthusiasm towards our work. They concluded: “The authors have achieved a daunting task by collecting all the ChIP and gene expression data to constitute the first database of p53/p63 response element and thus perform a meta-analysis. It is a much necessary work as such a database paves the way to break the p53/p63 code and thus better predict pathologies and the response to treatment.” We hope the data collections and the findings we made through analyzing these data will be of help to many researchers.