Our Research Team

Matthias was born and raised in a small village surrounded by the Swiss alps in the heart of continental Europe.  He obtained his Ph.D. in Microbiology & Systems biology from the University of Basel, Switzerland in 2010.  He spent time as an asset and liability manager before joining the lab of Hidde Ploegh at Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research / MIT as a postdoctoral fellow in 2013.  In 2016, he moved with the Ploegh lab to Boston Children's Hospital / Harvard Medical School to finish up his postdoctoral work. 

In July 2018, he joined the Medical School at University of Michigan, founding the Truttmann Lab which is focused on the impact of post-translational protein modifications (PTMs) on proteostasis in the context of aging and aging-associated neurodegenerative diseases. 

In 2023, he established the Taubman Nanobody Initiative, with generous support from the Taubman Institute, allowing him to concentrate his 10+ years of experience in nanobody-related research to developing a novel platform for the generation and characterization of new nanobodies for therapeutic, diagnostic, and biomedical research applications.

When he's not thinking about science, he enjoys hanging out with his family, exercising, cooking & baking.

Mary is a native Michigander.  She has a BS degree in Biochemistry and Toxicology from Eastern Michigan University and completed her MS thesis in Cellular and Molecular Biology at EMU studying plant cell wall components in yeast and Arabidopsis model systems.

She spent 10 years in the University of Michigan Pathology and Biogerontology departments managing the Lombard Lab and researching the mechanisms of age-related pathologies using cancer cell and mouse models, but decided to remain at the University of Michigan when the lab moved to Miami.

In 2022, Mary joined the laboratory of Henry Paulson in the Neurology department at the University of Michigan.  In this position, she was involved with many collaborative studies in neurodegenerative research, including work with novel antibodies and nanobodies.

She is thrilled to be on the ground floor Taubman Nanobody Initiative and to use her diverse skill set (PubMed) to support the mission of the initiative and of the Taubman Institute.  

Outside of the lab she enjoys lurking on her teenager's social media profiles, asking Russell to make her food, collecting magnets, and reading Hemingway biographies.