2016

David has received the Excellence Award in Physics for the development of a picoscopic cell balance. The award is the highest distinction from the Spanish Professional Association of Physicists and recognizes the outstanding trajectories of scientists in different fields of physics with a focus on innovation and industrial applications. 

Michael former PhD student of our lab has just accepted an offer from the prestigious Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona, Spain (ICFO, https://icfo.eu/). In 2017 Michael, now a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University, will start as a group leader/professor. In addition he just received an ERC grant. We wish you an outstanding time!!!

Viral infection is initiated when a virus binds to cell surface receptors. However, the very first binding events of enveloped viruses are hardy understood. Here, we introduce an nanoscopic assay to image animal cells and to detect virus-binding events within the first ms of contact at high resolution. We observe how viruses quickly occupy binding sites of the viral glycoprotein to initiate virus fusion and uptake. See Alsteens et al. Nat. Nanotech. (2016)

Congrats to Tania. Her newest paper, appearing in Nature Chemical Biology, describes how the chaperone/translocase YidC supports the insertion and folding of the sugar transporter lactose permease LacY. YidC prevents the LacY polypeptide from misfolding and supports the stochastic and stepwise insertion and folding of structural segments until the folding of native LacY has been completed. The work was done together with Ron Kaback UCLA.

From 11.-16. Sepmetber 2016 we organize together with the Groups of Horst Vogel (EPFL), Lukas Tamm (University Virginia) and the Biophysical Society of the United Staates above conference to cover recent developments for investigating biochemical reactions and networks at, in, and across membranes of artificial and cell membrane-derived vesicles. The conference will take part at the beautiful Monte Verita in Ascona, Switzerland. 

Congrats to Moritz to his new paper appearing in Nature Cell Biology. In collaboration with the Steinmetz group (PSI Villigen, Switzerland), Moritz applied high-resolution AFM to image engineered SAS-6-based oligomers with symmetries ranging from five- to ten-fold. SAS-6 proteins are thought to assemble an about nine-fold symmetric cartwheel structure which are important for centrioles to form centrosomes in eucaryotes. See M. Hilbert et al. Nature Cell Biology (2016) 18, 393-403.