Tuesday, 16 November, 2010

Welcome!

Prof. Claudia Veigel joins CeNS as Ordinary Member

 

Since finishing her MD/PhD at the Universities of Tübingen and Heidelberg studying Redox-reactions in muscle cells her research has been focussed on biophysical studies of components of the cytoskeleton in cells. The general aim is to obtain a molecular and quantitative understanding of cellular motility, phenomena that range from cell division, cell movement, intracellular transport processes, exo- or endocytosis to signal transduction in mammalian hearing.

As a postdoc she had joined the lab of David White and Justin Molloy at the University of York UK, to apply single molecule technologies specifically optical tweezers, to study myosin motor proteins at the single molecule level. She obtained a Royal Society University Research Fellowship to set up her own group and then joined the MRC National Institute of Medical Research in London as a group leader. At the end of 2009 she moved back to Germany to chair the Department of Cellular Physiology at the LMU Munich. Her group applies optical tweezers, single molecule fluorescence and atomic force microscopy to characterise the basic mechanisms of motor proteins interacting with their substrates in in-vitro systems and in cells. A major part of her work is technological development to adapt these single molecule techniques for various specific applications. This includes exploring probes for single molecule fluorescence measurements or substrates to attach or link biomolecules for single molecule characterisation. Modelling of the often highly non-linear, mechanical properties of the biomolecular nano-systems is also becoming increasingly important to her work and will provide new frameworks to understand how these bio-materials function.

Website: physinst.web.med.uni-muenchen.de