ERC Starting Grant for Ulrich Lorenz
Visualizing the Conformational Dynamics of Proteins by Time-Resolved Electron Microscopy
Ulrich Lorenz is a junior PI in MUST. Since March 1, 2016, he has an Assistant Professorship at EPFL that is sponsored by the Swiss National Science Foundation. On June 1, he was appointed Tenure Track Assistant Professor. He studied Chemistry at the University of Würzburg, straying very briefly into Metal Organic Chemistry, before discovering his interest in Molecular Physics. During his Ph.D. in the group of Prof. Thomas Rizzo at EPFL, he worked on the spectroscopy and dynamics of cryogenic molecular ions in the gas-phase, which included a fair share of instrument development. For his postdoc in the group of Prof. Ahmed Zewail at Caltech, he switched to the field of Time-resolved Electron Microscopy, studying the dynamics of nanoscale systems.
A summary of his ERC-project: "The function of many proteins involves large-amplitude domain motions that occur on a timescale of microseconds to millisecond. In the absence of tools to directly observe these dynamics, our understanding of the function of proteins is necessarily incomplete and must frequently rely on extrapolation from known static structures. The project involves the implementation of real-time imaging of single particle dynamics in liquid phase with both microsecond time resolution as well as near-atomic spatial resolution. The experimental approach builds on several recent technological advances, namely the advent of Time-Resolved (“Four-Dimensional”) Electron Microscopy, in-situ Electron Microscopy, and direct electron detection cameras, which are combined with established single-particle reconstruction techniques in cryo-Electron Microscopy. Visualizing the conformational dynamics of proteins will fundamentally advance our understanding of these nanoscale machines and has the potential to greatly benefit biomedical applications."
Ulrich Lorenz is a junior PI in MUST. Since March 1, 2016, he has an Assistant Professorship at EPFL that is sponsored by the Swiss National Science Foundation. On June 1, he was appointed Tenure Track Assistant Professor. He studied Chemistry at the University of Würzburg, straying very briefly into Metal Organic Chemistry, before discovering his interest in Molecular Physics. During his Ph.D. in the group of Prof. Thomas Rizzo at EPFL, he worked on the spectroscopy and dynamics of cryogenic molecular ions in the gas-phase, which included a fair share of instrument development. For his postdoc in the group of Prof. Ahmed Zewail at Caltech, he switched to the field of Time-resolved Electron Microscopy, studying the dynamics of nanoscale systems.
A summary of his ERC-project: "The function of many proteins involves large-amplitude domain motions that occur on a timescale of microseconds to millisecond. In the absence of tools to directly observe these dynamics, our understanding of the function of proteins is necessarily incomplete and must frequently rely on extrapolation from known static structures. The project involves the implementation of real-time imaging of single particle dynamics in liquid phase with both microsecond time resolution as well as near-atomic spatial resolution. The experimental approach builds on several recent technological advances, namely the advent of Time-Resolved (“Four-Dimensional”) Electron Microscopy, in-situ Electron Microscopy, and direct electron detection cameras, which are combined with established single-particle reconstruction techniques in cryo-Electron Microscopy. Visualizing the conformational dynamics of proteins will fundamentally advance our understanding of these nanoscale machines and has the potential to greatly benefit biomedical applications."