Welcome to the Braun lab on Systems Biophysics !

We are interested in synthetic evolution. Our focus is to construct disequilibrium settings that allow autonomous molecular evolution. We aim to drive a Darwinian Process only with a thermal gradient: convection drives replication while the thermal molecule trap drives the selection of long, information bearing replicates. Is it possible to recreate molecular evolution in the lab?

In the past, we studied the behaviour of biomolecules in temperature gradients,  light driven microfluidics, building optothermal molecule traps and studying kinetics in living cells. Most importantly, we developed all-optical methods to move small molecules and measure the binding affinity of biomolecules in complex biological fluids such as serum. This research motivated former PhD students Stefan Duhr and Philipp Baaske to found the startup company NanoTemper Technologies (Deutscher Innovationspreis 2012) for the analysis of biomolecule interactions and enzyme activities.

• Since August 2010, we are receiving funding through an ERC Starting Grant.
• Dieter Braun obtained the Klung-Wilhelmy Weberbank Price 2011
  the highest paying price for young Physicists in Germany.

Selected recent publications

Escalation of Polymerization in a Thermal Gradient

Christof B. Mast, Severin Schink, Ulrich Gerland and Dieter Braun
PNAS, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1303222110 [PDF]

Stefan Duhr and Philipp Baaske

with their Team managed to win the 100.000 Euro STEP Award for their NanoTemper Technologies Startup. Congratulations!

Label-Free Microscale Thermophoresis Discriminates Sites and Affinity of Protein–Ligand Binding [PDF]

Susanne Seidel, Christoph J. Wienken, Sandra Geissler, Moran Jerabek-Willemsen, Stefan Duhr, Alwin Reiter, Dirk Trauner, Dieter Braun, Philipp Baaske, Angewandte Chemie DOI: 10.1002/anie.201204268 (2012)

Thermal, Autonomous Replicator Made from Transfer RNA

Hubert Krammer, Friederike M. Möller, and Dieter Braun
PRL 108, 238104 (2012). DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.238104
Links: APS Synopsis

Stefan Duhr and Philipp Baaske

with their Team managed to win the Deutsche Innovationspreis for their NanoTemper Technologies Startup. Congratulations!

Direct Detection of Antibody Concentration and Affinity in Human Serum Using Microscale Thermophoresis

Svenja Lippok, Susanne A. I. Seidel, Stefan Duhr, Kerstin Uhland, Hans-Peter Holthoff, Dieter Jenne and Dieter Braun
Analytical Chemistry 84, 3523–3530 (2012). DOI:10.1021/ac202923j

A Robust and Rapid Method of Producing Soluble, Stable, and Functional G-Protein Coupled Receptors [PDF]

Karolina Corin, Philipp Baaske, Deepali B. Ravel, Junyao Song, Emily Brown, Xiaoqiang Wang, Sandra Geissler, Christoph J. Wienken, Moran Jerabek-Willemsen, Stefan Duhr, Dieter Braun, Shuguang Zhang
PLoS One 6, e23036 (2011). DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0023036

Molecular Interaction Studies Using Microscale Thermophoresis [PDF]

Moran Jerabek-Willemsen, Chistoph J. Wienken, Dieter Braun, Philipp Baaske and Stefan Duhr
ASSAY and Drug Development Technologies 9, 342-553 (2011). DOI: 10.1089/adt.2011.0380

Emergence of Information Transmission in a Prebiotic RNA Reactor

Benedikt Obermayer, Hubert Krammer, Dieter Braun, and Ulrich Gerland
PRL 107, 018101 (2011). DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.018101
Links: APS Viewpoint, PhysOrg

Peptide surfactants for cell-free production of functional G-protein-coupled receptors

Xiaoqiang Wang, Karolina Corina, Philipp Baaske, Christoph J. Wienken, Moran Jerabek-Willemsen, Stefan Duhr, Dieter Braun, and Shuguang Zhang
PNAS 108, 9049-9054 (2011)

Protein-binding assays in biological liquids using microscale thermophoresis [PDF]

Christoph J. Wienken, Philipp Baaske, Ulrich Rothbauer, Dieter Braun and Stefan Duhr
Nature Communications 1, 100 (2010)
Links: Bionity, Research Highlight Nature Methods

Thermal Trap for DNA Replication [PDF]

Christof B. Mast and Dieter Braun
Physical Review Letters 104, 188102 (2010)
Press: Physics Today, FAZ, Nano 3Sat, Movie:Focus Online, Der Standard, Sueddeutsche, New Scientist, SciNexx

Optical Thermophoresis for Quantifying the Buffer Dependence of Aptamer Binding [PDF]

Philipp Baaske, Christoph J. Wienken, Philipp Reineck, Stefan Duhr, Dieter Braun, Angewandte Chemie 49, 2238-2241 (2010)
Press: Deutschlandfunk (Radio)

Hybridization Kinetics is Different Inside Cells [PDF]

Ingmar Schoen, Hubert Krammer and Dieter Braun
PNAS 106, 21649–21654 (2009)

An Optical Conveyor for Molecules [PDF]

Franz M. Weinert and Dieter Braun
Nano Letters 9, 4264-4267 (2009)

Optically driven fluid flow
along arbitrary microscale patterns
using thermoviscous expansion [PDF]

Franz M. Weinert and Dieter Braun
Journal of Applied Physics 104, 104701 (2008)

Microscale Fluid Flow Induced by
Thermoviscous Expansion Along a Traveling Wave [PDF]

Franz M. Weinert, Jonas A. Kraus, Thomas Franosch and Dieter Braun
Physical Review Letters 100, 164501 (2008)

From the cover:
Extreme Accumulation of Nucleotides in Simulated Hydrothermal Pore Systems

Philipp Baaske, Franz M. Weinert, Stefan Duhr, Kono H. Lemke, Michael J. Russell, Dieter Braun
PNAS 104, 9346–9351 (2007)

[Commentary by Eugene V. Koonin, PNAS 104, 9105-9106 (2007)]

From the cover:
Why molecules move along a temperature gradient

Stefan Duhr and Dieter Braun
PNAS 103, 19678–19682 (2006)

[Commentary by Dean Astumian, PNAS 104, 3-4 (2007)]