Monday, 25 April, 2016
ERC Advanced Grant for Fritz Simmel
Extraordinary CeNS member wins highly-endowed research grant
An Advanced Grant awarded by the European Research Council (ERC) in its latest funding round has gone to Extraordinary CeNS member Prof. Fritz Simmel (TU Munich).
Prof. Friedrich Simmel, faculty member of the TUM Physics department, focuses on bionanotechnology and the physics of synthetic biological systems. His research emphasizes artificial molecular machines and structures consisting of biological molecules and the design of artificial biochemical control loops.
In the project funded by the ERC Advanced Grant Prof. Simmel intends to find new ways to create intelligent, dynamic microstructures from polymer gels and nucleic acids. The cell-sized components are to have sensory and information processing capabilities and are to be able to generate various materials depending on their local chemical situations.
Another approach is the evolutionary development and optimization of RNA-based molecular switches and nanostructures. Methods derived from molecular evolutionary processes are to generate a large number of various components from which the most suitable components for a particular given task are artificially selected. The objective is a range of macroscopic materials using DNA-programmed intelligence to provide new properties for fields such as environmental sensing technologies and biocatalysis. These materials will also be able to autonomously perform innovative new functions as adaptive materials.