Biophysikalische Chemie

News and Highlights

The group in February 2023

News from 2024

• Our paper "Cell-substrate distance fluctuations of confluent cells enable fast and coherent collective migration" together with Alaexey Chizhik and Alf Honigmann has just been published in Cell Reports. Congratulations to all involved!


• Congratulations to Paul Nieschwitz, who finished his Master Thesis in Physics entitled 'A quantitative analysis of perturbations in epithelial cell sheet dynamics in confinement by micropillars and the influence of tight-junctions in collective behavior' in May. Congrats on this impressive work and all the best for your future endeavors!


• Hanna Hartung just finished her bachelor thesis on 'Magnesium-ions acting as crosslinkers for actin' in our group this May. Congrats on this great work!


• Dr. Tanmaya Sethi has succesfully defended her PhD thesis on 'Quantitative Estimation of Cell Mechanical Cues using Elastic Micropillars' in February. Congratulations Dr. Sethi, we wish you the very best in whatever direction life takes you now!


• A new paper has just been published in Nature Communications together with our collaborators from Warwick Medical School, showing that the smallest changes in actin isoforms can have big impacts on their rheological properties and thus, biological functions. Congrats on all involved on this impressive publication!

News from 2023

• Fadi Shikho just started his PhD in our group working on the biophysical properties of spore dormancy. Welcome Fadi!


• Lisa Egbringhoff just finished her bachelor's thesis on characterizing wound healing in tight junction knockout epithelia using electric cell-substrate Impedance sensing (ECIS) with us. We wish you lots of luck in your future studies!


• Congratulations to our former PhD student Sarah Verbeek for receiving the European Biophysics Journal Prize at the EBSA 2023 for her paper How arginine derivatives alter the stability of lipid membranes: dissecting the roles of side chains, backbone and termini.


• Yejin Moon and Hoai Thoung Nguyen both finished their bachelor's thesis on epithelial plasma membrane domains and force detection in iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes, respectively. Congrats to both, and good luck in your future endeavors!


• We are very excited to be among the recipients of the 2023 HFSP research grant awards for the project by Mohan Balasubramanian together with Sigal Ben Yehuda and Ben O'Shaughnessy to work on spore dormancy and revival mechanisms across scales.


• Mark Skamrahl, who left our lab to see the world end of January, just had the last part of his Ph.D. work published in PNAS. Congratulations, Mark; we wish you the best for your trip around the world and the new adventures afterward! Read about the exciting physics and mechanics of cellular segregation in cocultures here.


• Susanne Stenz also finished her bachelor thesis recently entitled: "Investigating the influence of N-terminal arginylation on the mechanical properties of β-actin". Congrats on this great work; we are very excited to collaborate with you for a bit longer as a student research assistant in our group!


• After being a part of our lab for many years as a student researcher, bachelor student, and now master student, Hongtao Pang just finished her Master's thesis on "Investigating the mechanical interactions and dynamics of epithelial cells with varying intercellular adhesion". Congratulations and good luck on your future endeavors! Thank you for many great memories over the past years.


• Thanh Tan Huynh Huu just finished his bachelor thesis on "Quantification of confined collective epithelial cell movements via velocity flow fields" in our group, Congrats! We wish you the best in your graduate studies!


• Niklas Klatt and Nilay Cicek both joined our group as new Ph.D. students in January/February as part of the new Research Training Group "CYTAC". Niklas got his Master's degree in Göttingen, and Nilay joined us from Sabancı University in Istanbul. Welcome to both!


• Chin-Yao Chang has joined our group as a new Ph.D. student. Chin-Yao got his Degree from the Max Planck School Matter to Life and started his Ph.D. with us in December 2022. Welcome, Chin-Yao!


• The new DFG-funded research training group Cytoskeletal elements of active matter – from molecular interactions to cellular biophysics (CYTAC) hast started on 01/01/23. We are looking forward to our first cohort of highly motivated students and many fruitful collaborations!