His doctoral work was done at RWTH Aachen University's Deutsches Wollforschungsinstitut (now called the DWI – Leibniz-Institut für Interaktive Materialien [de]).
[1][2] Wittinghofer and colleagues examined the structure, function and mode of action of the oncogene product Ras.
[3][4][5] Fred Wittinghofer has worked all his scientific life on the elucidation of structure-function relationships of GTP-binding proteins.
He has shown how they function as molecular switches and how they perform their biological role by interacting with regulators and effectors.
Many more proteins of this class like Ran, Rap, Rho, Arl and Septins were investigated and their structure, function and biochemistry elucidated.