The department “Microbial Proteomics”, headed by D. Becher, is focused on the development, establishment and optimization of mass spectrometry based proteomic methods. State-of-the-art high end mass spectrometers are used  for a global analysis of protein expression profiles as well as the detailed characterization of single proteins or protein complexes, including their post translational modifications. From special interest are workflows for the global characterization of microbial proteomes quantitatively in relative and absolute manner. Especially targeted methods are applied for the highly sensitive absolute quantification of proteins. Methods are mainly developed and applied with special consideration of infection related conditions or meta-proteomic aspects.