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This dissertation is the result of three and a half years of work during which many people have supported me. I would like to thank all of them in the next lines: First of all, special thanks go to my supervisor Priv. Doz. Dr. Hans-Werner Adolph for its helpful and stimulating discussions during this work and for the reviewing of the thesis. I would also like to sincerely thank Prof. Dipl. Ing. Dr. tech. Elmar Heinzle, who gave me th

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1.1 Important terms and concepts related to genomic imprinting _________________________ _ 2 1.2 CpG islands as regulatory elements _____________________________________________ _ 3 1.3 Differentially methylated regions and imprinting clusters____________________________ _ 6 1.4 Reading the imprint _________________________________________________________ _

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Dekan:

Synthesis and physico-chemical studies on dithiolene complexes of the closed-shell (d 10) metals and trivalent lanthanide ion

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Cationically-modified nanoparticles for the pulmonary delivery of the telomerase inhibitor 2’-O-Methyl RNA for the treatment of lung cancer Dissertation zur Erlangung des Grade

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I would like to thank

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First and foremost, I would like to dedicate my thanks to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Volkhard Helms for offering me the opportunity to work in his group. During the last years, he supported me with fruitful discussions, valuable suggestions, and his encouragement. Especially, I am thankful for offering me the opportunity to attend many interesting conferences and workshops. In this context, I would also like to thank the Center for Bioinformatics, Saar for the initial funding. I want to thank my co-workers, especially Tihamér Geyer for his technical support and assistance and the “Coffee Club ” for very enjoyable scientific, as well as non-scientific discussions. Furthermore, I thank Jan Fuhrmann and Dirk Neumann who kindly provided their BALLPass implementation to us and Anja Berwanger and Prof. Dr. Rita Bernhardt for giving me interesting insights into the “in vitro ” world of Biochemistry. Last, but now least I want to specially thank my friends Benjamin Eckert, Lars Steinbrück, Dorothea Emig, Peter Walter, and Andreas Schlicker for revising my thesis and my family for always believing in me. Protein-protein interactions play a pivotal role in most biological processes. Especially their functio