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SFB 863:  Forces in Biomolecular Systems

Subject Area Biology
Physics
Term from 2010 to 2021
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 111166240
 
Mechanical forces affect and control many vital processes in cells. Examples include genome organisation, cellular transport, cell motility as well as cell development and differentiation. The question of how mechanical cues eventually lead to a complex biological response is still poorly understood despite its importance for many processes of biological and medical relevance. Uncovering the principles underlying molecular mechano-biology requires a multi-faceted approach that combines advanced single molecule mechanical methods, in vitro reconstitution of biomolecular systems as well as imaging and cell biology. In the past 8 years, this CRC has assembled a team of biophysicists, theorists, biochemists and cell biologists with the common goal of studying the effects of mechanical forces on biomolecular systems in an interdisciplinary approach. In the past funding periods, the researchers of this CRC have developed cutting-edge technologies to study bio-mechanical systems from the single molecule level up to the cellular scale. Over this time, strong collaborations have evolved across the different projects, in which the combined expertise in physical technologies and advanced cell biology has resulted in synergies enabling research impossible to conduct for one research group alone. Many key developments within this CRC, like dynamic structure determination using FRET, deconvolution single molecule force spectroscopy, DNA origami based single molecule devices or in vivo force sensors have taken the research to a new level and will now enable experiments inconceivable at the time when this CRC had started. For the next four years, researchers in this CRC will use this momentum and tackle novel questions in biomolecular mechanics. In area A, we will investigate biomechanics on the single molecule level. Research topics will include dynamics and interaction of proteins and molecular machines studied by force spectroscopy techniques as well as molecular dynamics calculations. A new focus will be on mechanical aspects of replication and packaging of DNA using DNA origami, magnetic tweezers as well as flow stretching and MD simulations. In research area B, mechanics on a supra-molecular and cellular scale will be studied. Mechanics of active cytoskeletal networks, molecular motors as well as the mechanics of cell adhesion will be the focus of the projects. This research will provide us with in vitro models for the mechanics of important processes like cell motility and division. With the completion of the full 12 years of this CRC we will have unravelled molecular foundations for many biomechanical processes relevant in the biological and medical sciences.
DFG Programme Collaborative Research Centres

Completed projects

Participating University Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Participating Institution Max-Planck-Institut für Biochemie (MPIB)
 
 

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