Research Interests
Single cell biophysics | Quantitative biology | Biofluiddynamics | Environmental microbiology |
Dictyostelium discoideum is a good model organism to study intracellular dynamics, as it is relatively easy to culture, easy to handle during the experiment and a huge variety of strains with fluorescently labelled proteins exist. In terms of single cell biophysics we investigate the responses of such labelled proteins (which are part of the chemotactic signal response or the cytoskeleton) to time varying short-time chemical stimuli.
During its aggregation phase thousands of individual Dictyostelium discoideum amoebae crawl together, following a chemical signal, to finally form a multicellular organism. There are still open questions left in the aggregative multicellularity of Dictyostelium discoideum. Quantitative biology of this phenomenon requires large amounts of data samples (in this case individual cells crawling together) at a reasonable magnification. We currently study the aggregative multicellularity using automated microscopy and quantitative image analysis.
Regarding the topic biofluiddynamics, I am part of a collaboration with the group of Gregor Eichele at the neighboring Max-Planck-institute for Biophysical chemistry. We investigate the cilia driven flow of the cerebrospinal fluid in the third ventricle of the brain. The fluid flow is tracked by fluorescent beads and the subsequent data analysis yields in flow maps describing the different flow patterns. These flow maps itself function as an input for fluid flow simulations, done by Yong Wang.
Within my Diploma thesis and also partially during my PostDoc in Graz I worked on different topics of environmental microbiology. I still keep my interest in that scientific area, although at present I am not persuing research related to environmental microbiology.