Our interests focus on two major fields of research:
1. Sequence and analysis of the Dictyostelium discoideum genome
2. The role of the actin cytoskeleton in Dictyostelium discoideum and in mammalian cells

The research work is carried out in a number of different national and multinational projects with the following main topics:
- functional genomics
- role of the actin cytoskeleton in cell polarity
- function of Coronin-related proteins in mammalians
- function of Annexin A7
- actin-binding proteins at the nuclear membrane
- function and regulation of the cytoskeleton through Rho-GTPases

The actin-cytoskeleton of a cell is important for cell shape, cell morphogenesis and cell motility. These aspects play an essential role in many functions such as development, immune defence and wound healing. Actin-binding proteins are the key regulators of the actin ctyoskeleton and are of central interest to our investigations. We study their role at the structural, biochemical and cell biological level in both Dictyostelium and mice.
Dictyostelium discoideum, a soil-living amoeba, is an excellent model system for the study of the molecular mechanisms of cell motility, signal transduction, cell-type differentiation and developmental processes. The completion of the Dictyostelium genome sequencing project will not only be of great value for all to those working with this organism directly, but also provide important insights for comparative and functional genomics approaches in other species.

Angelika A. Noegel received her PhD in 1979 from the University of Würzburg where she worked in the field of bacterial pathogenicity. After four years as research associate at the Institute of Bacteriology and Immunology at the Rockefeller University in New York, she moved on to the Department of Cell Biology at the Max-Planck-Institute for Biochemistry in Martinsried in 1983, as research associate and group leader. She was appointed professor at the Institute of Biochemistry I at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Cologne in 1997.
Professor Noegel is an elected member of the EMBO. Currently she is vice-president of the German Society for Cell Biology. She is a board member of the Journal of Cell Science, Functional and Integrative Genomics, Eukaryotic Cell and Cell Motility and the Cytoskeleton.
Since 2000 she serves as a speciality evaluator on the national level for the DFG (German Research Society) as well as for various international organizations and research centers like the Swiss National Fond and the Cancer Research UK.