Research in Biophysics and Soft Matter
Biophysics is part of the life sciences and deals with fundamental questions like the functionality of lipids, proteins and further macromolecules, ranging from cellular and sub-cellular systems to cells and united cell structures. It is becoming more and more evident, that processes in creatures cannot be understood by solely considering chemical and biochemical methods. The topic of analysing proteins and lipids is closely related to the physics of macromolecules, to be on hand as both single molecules and networks.
The Institue for Experimental Physics conducts various research activities in this field. Next to the mechanical properties of cytoskeletons, they observe also polymers by using Atomic Force Microscopy. Furthermore, the institute works on nanooptics, i.e. optical effects of objects with a size of some microns.
The Institute of Biophysics investigates the structure and dynamics of proteins. The main questions of interest are how to modify the properties of proteins and how to fully synthesize them. Typical experimental techniques are Relaxation and Single Molecule Spectroscopy.