Biomolecules
Prof. Winter’s research is focused on animal behaviour, especially cognitive performance, e.g. learning ability, memory and their neurobiological foundation for foraging. He carries out behavioural assessments for mice and rats, mostly for preclinical research, to investigate decision-making processes in animals. Lab space is available, inter alia at the Berlin Mouse Clinic for Neurology and Psychiatry (BMC), one of the leading diagnostic institutions within the NeuroCure Cluster of Excellence. Prof. Winter and his team also advise on experimental design and develop automated equipment and systems for behavioural studies on rodents for external laboratories. Another area of his expertise is virtual reality for humans. Here Prof. Winter focuses on the development of a compact, mobile, and immersive virtual reality environment for a wide range of uses.
Behavioural analysis:
- Computer controlled sensor and actuator systems for manipulation and measuring of behaviour
- Modular software system for automated measuring of behaviour
- RFID technology
Virtual reality:
- Immersive 3D-virtual reality system with closed monitoring (octagon)
- Software for rapid implementation of specific VR-applications and interaction scenarios
- Planning and development of a system for automated diagnostics of parameters for motor skills after clinical surgery for a large international pharmaceutical group. 24h recording and measurement as operator independent system.
H. Lorberg Baumschulerzeugnisse GmbH & Co. KG, Bein GmbH, Bayer Crop Science, XEROFLOR
Prof. Ulrichs is an expert in the field of ecophysiology of plants with a special focus on plants in urban spaces. His team studies processes, which determine plant growth, e.g. stress exposure in an urban environment. The emphasis of his research lies on the analysis of the secondary metabolite balance (incl. its nutritional function), substance allocation, competition and plant-insect interaction. Prof. Ulrichs other major field of expertise is the quality assurance in food supply chains of horticultural products, especially for perishable foodstuffs like fruits and vegetables in temperate zones as well as in tropical/subtropical regions.
- molecular methods
- in-vitro propagation
- HPLC
- GC/MS
- electroantennogram studies
- trace gas analysis using photoacoustic spectroscopy
- German specialty chemicals group: development of nanostructured plant protection agents
- H. Lorberg Baumschulerzeugnisse GmbH & Co. KG (tree nursery): selection of climate-tolerant boulevard trees (Alleebaum)
- Bein GmbH: development of electrostatic application processes of nanostructured elements
- Bayer Crop Science: biosensors to prove the existence of plant viruses
- XEROFLOR: development of vegetation carriers to prevent soil erosion in the Alps
IT system house
IT product manufacturer
international pharmaceutical company
medium-sized biotechnology company
The research of Prof. Leser and his group is focused on all aspects of management, integration and analysis of heterogeneous, large and distributed data sets including natural language texts (text-mining and information extraction). This encompasses subjects such as data warehouses and ETL, graph databases, deep web and semantic web, machine learning, similarity search, scientific workflows, statistical methods of data analysis as well as methods for assessing and securing data quality. The team of Professor Leser conducts research in a variety of interdisciplinary projects, especially with colleagues from the life sciences covering the range from basic molecular biology to Systems Medicine.
Very good IT-facilities:
- several state-of-the-art parallel computer cluster (20-80 CPUs, 1 TB main memory)
- cluster with 60+ cores
- 50TB+ storage
- For an IT service provider: Consultancy and prototype development in the field of master data standardisation and integration
- For an IT-manufacturer: Development and valuation of algorithms for analysing data quality
- For an international pharmaceutical company: Consultancy and development of text-mining-procedures in biomarker development
- For a medium-sized biotech company: Joint system development (partly funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy) in the field of human genotype changes evaluation
Prof. Dobbek analyses the biochemical principles of bacterial growth on substrates, i.e. carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide as well as aromatic compounds, which also are pollutants. The main focus lies on the functional and structural investigation of metalliferous enzymes that transform unreactive molecules in oxygen free conditions and thus enable bacteria to grow in a seemingly hostile environment. Developing new (biological) catalysts capable of energy-efficiently transforming carbon dioxide and monoxide is Prof. Dobbek’s goal. Moreover these catalysts are designed to generate new enzymes for the biological decomposition of substances damaging to humans and the environment.
- production of proteins under aerobic and anaerobic conditions (FPLC and HPLC procedures)
- robotic protein crystallization under standard conditions and in oxygen free conditions (glovebox technique)
- crystallographic structural analysis of proteins
- general methods in the field of structural bioinformatics
- methods to examine enzymatic processes, e.g. fast mixing methods (stopped-flow spectroscopy under aerobic and anaerobic conditions), analyses using HPLC, GC-MS, UV/Vis- and fluorescence spectroscopy, isothermal titration calorimetry under aerobic conditions
Prof. Grimm and his team mainly investigate the metabolic control of tetrapyrrole biosynthesis and photosynthesis. They also do research on the regulation of sucrose transport in plants. The plant science team is interested in studying the unique properties and functions of plant cells, such as intracellular communication between the nucleus and the two main plant organelles, plastids and mitochondria. Prof. Grimm’s group applies several experimental methods and techniques from the areas of biochemistry, genetics, molecular and cell biology in their research and in the training programs for students and young academics.
The Plant Physiology group provides all necessary equipment and instrumentation for plant growth and molecular genetics, biochemical and physiological work:
- S1 greenhouse
- growth cabinets for Arabidopsis
- radionuclide laboratory
- HPLC equipped with diode array and fluorescence detector
- FPLC
- fluorescence spectrometer
- microtiter plate reader (w/ fluorescence detection)
- UV/Vis photometer • PAM-2000 fluorometer
- LI-COR photosynthesis device
- fluorescence microscope
- ultracentrifuges and high speed centrifuges including rotors
- clean benches
- incubators for growth of genetically modified bacteria and yeast
- several PCR machines, e.g. microplate readers and PCR light cycler
- confocal laser scanning microscope (CLSM)
- Oil mills: pigments in rapeseed oil
- Food-producing corporation: postharvesting treatment and storage of leafy greens
- Pharmaceutical group: vitamin synthesis and content in plants