Welcome to the Mast + Braun labs !
pi_team

Can we understand the mechanisms that lead to the Darwinian evolution of the first living molecules on the early Earth? Our experiments recreate the first steps of molecular evolution using microscale experiments. We study the nonequilibrium settings how dead molecules could be combined by physical forces into an autonomous mechanism of Darwinian evolution.

One of our focus are physical non-equilibria such as asymmetrically heated open cracks in rocks. They can host molecular evolution by an unexpected combination of molecular, thermal and fluidic effects. For example, intricate wet-dry cycles are created at fuild-gas interfaces in a thermal gradient. Also, the temperature difference induces laminar convection which thermocycles genetic molecules for replication. At the same time, polymerization and accumulation is mutually enhanced in a hyperexponential fashion. The setting also lead to physical selection of cooperating, complexing molecules from a continuous feeding flow.

In the past, we clarified the microscopic physics behind the motion of molecules in a temperature difference, studied the nonequilibrium physics of pH gradients, have established methods to driven microfluidics by light and have studied reaction kinetics in living cells all-optically.

In particular, we developed an all-optical method to measure the binding affinity of biomolecules in complex biological fluids such as serum. The former PhD students Stefan Duhr and Philipp Baaske founded the Startup company NanoTemper Technologies (Deutscher Innovationspreis 2012, Step Award 2012) that sell instruments and technology to quantify biomolecule interaction and probe enzyme activity. They have more than 140 employees

The cluster proposals Origins II and BioSysteM were both successful!
Starting April 2025, we receive funding through an ERC Synergy grant with Hannes Mutschler!
The new collaboration CRC 392 Molecular Evolution started in April 2024
Starting Okt 2023, I am Fellow in the Max Planck School Matter to Life
Since July 2018, I am speaker of the CRC 235 Emergence of Life
Since Sept 2018, I coordinate of the Molecular Origins part of the Origins Cluster
Starting Autumn 2018, we receive funding through an ERC Advanced Grant.
Since July 2014, we obtain funding through Simons Collaboration on the Origins of Life Investigator award.
From August 2010, we received funding through an ERC Starting Grant.
Dieter Braun obtained the Klung-Wilhelmy Weberbank Price 2011.

News-Ticker

--- Sept 2026: On site Molecular Origins Munich will be held 11/12 June 2026: mark your calendars!
--- July 2025: Virtual Molecular Origins Munich 2025 is coming up - be invited!
--- July 2024: On site Molecular Origins Munich 2024 is coming up - be invited!
--- Dez 2023: We were successful with the CRC 392 Molecular evolution in prebiotic environments !
--- June 2023: Molecular Origins Munich 2023 was a very successful virtual meeting.
--- Sept 2022: Alan Ianeselli was awarded the Euregio-JungforscherInnen Price!
--- Jul 2022: Molecular Origins Munich 2022 was happening again the real world!
--- Jul 2020: Molecular Origins Munich 2020 has been held online and was a great success!
--- Apr 2019: We got a Grant extension (4 more years) in the Simons Collaboration on the Origins of Life
--- Nov 2018: We got the Technology Transfer Price of the DPG together with LMU and NanoTemper !
--- Sept 2018: Second Molecular Origins Conference
--- Sept 2018: The Cluster proposal "Origins" was successful!
--- June 2018: Our Volkswagen foundation Life! proposal with Matt Powner and Don Dingwell got funded!
--- July 2015: Start of the Origins of Life Initiative Munich, first hosting John Sutherland

Selected publications and prizes

Membraneless protocell confined by a heat flow

Alexander Floroni, Noël Yeh Martín, Thomas Matreux, Laura I. Weise, Sheref S. Mansy, Hannes Mutschler, Christof B. Mast and Dieter Braun, Nature Physics https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-025-02935-4 (2025) LMU press release

Prebiotic Gas Flow Environment Enables Isothermal Nucleic Acid Replication

Philipp Schwintek, Emre Eren, Christof Mast and Dieter Braun, eLife doi.org/10.7554/eLife.100152.3 (2025) LMU Press release

High-Yield Prebiotic Polymerization of 2′,3′-Cyclic Nucleotides under Wet–Dry Cycling

Federico Caimi, Juliette Langlais, Francesco Fontana, Sreekar Wunnava, Tommaso Bellini, Dieter Braun and Tommaso P. Fraccia, ACS Central Science https://doi.org/10.1021/acscentsci.5c00488 (2025)

Amino acids catalyse RNA formation under ambient alkaline conditions

Saroj K. Rout, Sreekar Wunnava, Miroslav Krepl, Giuseppe Cassone, Judit E. Šponer, Christof B. Mast, Matthew W. Powner and Dieter Braun, Nature Communications 16:5193, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-60359-3 (2025) LMU press release

Selection of Early Life Codons by Ultraviolet Light

Corinna L. Kufner, Stefan Krebs, Marlis Fischaleck, Julia Philippou-Massier, Helmut Blum, Dominik B. Bucher, Dieter Braun, Wolfgang Zinth & Christof B. Mast, ACS Central Science 11, 1, 147–156, doi.org/10.1021/acscentsci.4c01623 (2025)

Heat flows solubilize apatite to boost phosphate availability for prebiotic chemistry

Thomas Matreux, Almuth Schmid, Mechthild Rappold, Daniel Weller, Ayşe Zeynep Çalışkanoğlu, Kelsey R. Moore, Tanja Bosak, Donald B. Dingwell, Konstantin Karaghiosoff, François Guyot, Bettina Scheu, Dieter Braun & Christof B. Mast, Nature Communications doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-57110-3 (2025)

Heat flows enrich prebiotic building blocks and enhance their reactivity

Thomas Matreux, Paula Aikkila, Bettina Scheu, Dieter Braun and Christof B. Mast, Nature doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07193-7 (2024) Welt der Physik Bild der Wissenschaft Geo Magazin Spektrum Deutschlandfunk Merkur TZ Washington Post New Scientist Newsweek LMU press release Origins cluster press release Arstechnica Space daily Phys.org Astrobiology IDW Singularity hub SINC (ES) ZAP (PT) Quibit (HU) Pulsar (PL) Sveriges Radio (SE) Haaretz (IL) Hankyung (KR) Yonhap (KR)

Heat-Flow-Driven Nonequilibria for Prebiotic Chemistry

Christof B. Mast, ChemSystemsChem doi.org/10.1002/syst.202400039 (2024)

Template-based copying in chemically fuelled dynamic combinatorial libraries

Christine M. E. Kriebisch, Ludwig Burger, Oleksii Zozulia, Michele Stasi, Alexander Floroni, Dieter Braun, Ulrich Gerland and Job Boekhoven, Nature Chemistry doi.org/10.1038/s41557-024-01570-5 (2024)

High-Fidelity RNA Copying via 2′,3′-Cyclic Phosphate Ligation

Adriana C. Serrão, Sreekar Wunnava, Avinash V. Dass, Lennard Ufer, Philipp Schwintek, Christof B. Mast, and Dieter Braun, JACS doi.org/10.1021/jacs.3c10813 (2024) LMU Press release

Replication elongates short DNA, reduces sequence bias and develops trimer structure

Adriana C. Serrão, Felix T. Dänekamp, Zsófia Meggyesi, Dieter Braun, Nucleic Acids Research doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkad1190 (2023)

Sequence self-selection by cyclic phase separation

Giacomo Bartolucci, Adriana Calaça Serrão, Philipp Schwintek, Alexandra Kühnlein, Yash Rana, Philipp Janto, Dorothea Hofer, Christof B. Mast, Dieter Braun and Christoph A. Weber, PNAS 120 (43) e2218876120 (2023)

White and green rust chimneys accumulate RNA in a ferruginous chemical garden

Vanessa Helmbrecht, Maximilian Weingart, Frieder Klein, Dieter Braun, William D. Orsi, Geobiology, doi:10.1111/gbi.12572 (2023)

Alkaline vents recreated in two dimensions to study pH gradients, precipitation morphology, and molecule accumulation

Maximilian Weingart, Siyu Chen, Clara Donat, Vanessa Helmbrecht, William D. Orsi, Dieter Braun and Karen Alim, Science Advances, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adi1884 (2023)

Reactive phosphorus via simulated lightning discharge: A role for fulgurites in pre-biotic chemistry

A. Zeynep Çalışkanoğlu, Don Dingwell, Corrado Cimarelli, Alessandra S.B. Camara, Hergen Breitzke, Gerd Buntkowsky, Matthew A. Pasek, Dieter Braun, Bettina Scheu & Karan Molaverdikhani, K, Chemical Geology, 620, 121343 doi.org/10.1016/j.chemgeo.2023.121343 (2023)

Thermophoresis beyond Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium

Daniel B. Mayer, Thomas Franosch, Christof Mast, and Dieter Braun, Physical Review Letters 130, 168202 doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.168202 (2023)

Thermophoretic motion of a charged single colloidal particle

Daniel B. Mayer, Dieter Braun, and Thomas Franosch, Phys. Rev. E 107, 044602 doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.107.044602 (2023)

Ribozyme-mediated RNA synthesis and replication in a model Hadean microenvironment

Annalena Salditt, Leonie Karr, Elia Salibi, Kristian Le Vay, Dieter Braun & Hannes Mutschler, Nature Communications doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-37206-4 (2023)

Sequence dependent UV damage of complete pools of oligonucleotides

Corinna L. Kufner, Stefan Krebs, Marlis Fischaleck, Julia Philippou-Massier, Helmut Blum, Dominik B. Bucher, Dieter Braun, Wolfgang Zinth and Christof B. Mast, Scientific Reports doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-29833-0 (2023)

Formation mechanism of thermally controlled pH gradients

Thomas Matreux, Bernhard Altaner, Johannes Raith, Dieter Braun, Christof Mast and Ulrich Gerland, Communications Physics doi.org/10.1038/s42005-023-01126-y (2023)

Physical non-equilibria for prebiotic nucleic acid chemistry [PDF]

Alan Ianeselli, Annalena Salditt, Christof Mast, Barbara Ercolano, Corinna Kufner, Bettina Scheu and Dieter Braun, Nature Review Physics doi.org/10.1038/s42254-022-00550-3 (2023)

A heated rock crack captures and polymerizes primordial DNA and RNA

Christina F. Dirscherl, Alan Ianeselli, Damla Tetiker, Thomas Matreux, Robbin Queener, Christof Mast and Dieter Braun, PCCP doi.org/10.1039/D2CP04538A (2023)

Prebiotic foam environments to oligomerize and accumulate RNA

Emre Tekin; Annalena Salditt; Philipp Schwintek; Sree Wunnava; Juliette Langlais; James Saenz; Dora Tang; Petra Schwille; Christof Mast; Dieter Braun, ChemBioChem doi.org/10.1002/cbic.202200423 (2022)

RNA Oligomerisation without Added Catalyst from 2′,3′‑cyclic Nucleotides by Drying at Air‑Water Interfaces

Avinash Vicholous Dass, Sreekar Wunnava, Juliette Langlais, Beatriz von der Esch, Maik Krusche, Lennard Ufer, Nico Chrisam, Romeo C. A. Dubini, Florian Gartner, Severin Angerpointner, Christina F. Dirscherl, Petra Rovó, Christof B. Mast, Judit E. Šponer, Christian Ochsenfeld, Erwin Frey, Dieter Braun, ChemSystemsChem doi.org/10.1002/syst.202200026 (2022)

Water cycles in a Hadean CO2 atmosphere drive the evolution of long DNA

Alan Ianeselli, Miguel Atienza, Patrick Kudella, Ulrich Gerland, Christof Mast & Dieter Braun, Nature Physics doi.org/10.1038/s41567-022-01516-z (2022)

LMU Press release New&Views: Mist and replication

Non-equilibrium conditions inside rock pores drive fission, maintenance and selection of coacervate protocells

Alan Ianeselli, Damla Tetiker, Julian Stein, Alexandra Kühnlein, Christof B. Mast, Dieter Braun & T.-Y. Dora Tang, Nature Chemistry https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-021-00830-y (2021)

Acid-Catalyzed RNA-Oligomerization from 3’,5’-cGMP

S. Wunnava, C.F. Dirscherl, J. Výravský, A. Kovařík, R. Matyášek, J. Šponer, D. Braun, J.E. Šponer, Chem. Eur. J. /doi.org/10.1002/chem.202103672 (2021)

Self-Assembly of Informational Polymers by Templated Ligation

J. H. Rosenberger, T. Göppel, P. W. Kudella, D. Braun, U. Gerland, B. Altaner, PRX doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.11.031055 (2021)

Heat flows in rock cracks naturally optimize salt compositions for ribozymes

T. Matreux, K. Le Vay, A. Schmid, P. Aikkila, L. Belohlavek, A. Z. Çalışkanoğlu, E. Salibi, A. Kühnlein, C. Springsklee, B. Scheu, D. B. Dingwell, D. Braun, H. Mutschler, C. B. Mast, Nature Chemistry doi.org/10.1038/s41557-021-00772-5 (2021)

Non-Enzymatic, Template-Free Polymerization of 3’,5’ Cyclic Guanosine Monophosphate on Mineral Surfaces

Judit E. Šponer, Jiří Šponer, Jakub Výravský, Ondrej Šedo, Zbyněk Zdráhal, Giovanna Costanzo, Ernesto Di Mauro, Sreekar Wunnava, Dieter Braun, Roman Matyášek, Aleš Kovařík, ChemSystemsChem doi.org/10.1002/syst.202100017 (2021)

A new model for silicification of cyanobacteria in Proterozoic tidal flats

Kelsey R. Moore, Jian Gong, Mihkel Pajusalu, Emilie J. Skoog, Megan Xu, Tania Feliz Soto, Victor Sojo, Thomas Matreux, Matthew J. Baldes, Dieter Braun, Kenneth Williford, Tanja Bosak, Geobiology doi.org/10.1111/gbi.12447 (2021)

Kinetic Microscale Thermophoresis for Simultaneous Measurement of Binding Affinity and Kinetics

Julian A. C. Stein, Alan Ianeselli, Dieter Braun, Angewandte doi.org/10.1002/ange.202101261 (2021)

tRNA sequences can assemble into a replicator

Alexandra Kühnlein, Simon A Lanzmich, Dieter Braun, eLife 2021;10:e63431 doi: 10.7554/eLife.63431

Structured sequences emerge from random pool when replicated by templated ligation

Patrick Kudella, Alexei Tkachenko, Annalena Salditt, Sergei Maslov and Dieter Braun, PNAS doi:10.1073/pnas.2018830118 (2021)

Thermal Habitat for RNA Amplification and Accumulation

Annalena Salditt, Lorenz M. R. Keil, David P. Horning, Christof B. Mast, Gerald F. Joyce, and Dieter Braun
Physical Review Letters 125, 048104 (2020), doi:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.048104

CO2 reduction driven by a pH gradient

Reuben Hudson, Ruvan de Graaf, Mari Strandoo Rodin, Aya Ohno, Nick Lane, Shawn E. McGlynn, Yoichi M. A. Yamada, Ryuhei Nakamura, Laura M. Barge, Dieter Braun, and Victor Sojo
PNAS 117, 22873-22879 (2020), doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2002659117

Fission of Lipid-Vesicles by Membrane Phase Transitions in Thermal Convection

Patrick W. Kudella, Katharina Preißinger, Matthias Morasch, Christina F. Dirscherl, Dieter Braun, Achim Wixforth & Christoph Westerhausen
Scientific Reports 9, 18808 (2019), doi:10.1038/s41598-019-55110-0

Heated gas bubbles enrich, crystallize, dry, phosphorylate and encapsulate prebiotic molecules

M. Morasch, J. Liu, C.F. Dirscherl, A. Ianeselli, A. Kühnlein, K. Le Vay, P. Schwintek, S. Islam, M.K. Corpinot, B. Scheu, D.B. Dingwell, P. Schwille, H. Mutschler, M.W. Powner, C.B. Mast & D. Braun
Nature Chemistry(2019), doi.org/10.1038/s41557-019-0299-5

Highlight Nature, Chemistry Community, LMU Press Release

Periodic Melting of Oligonucleotides by Oscillating Salt Concentrations triggered by Microscale Water Cycles inside Heated Rock Pores

Alan Ianeselli, Christof B. Mast and Dieter Braun
Angewandte Chemie (2019), doi.org/10.1002/ange.201907909

Cooperative ligation breaks sequence symmetry and stabilizes early molecular replication

Shoichi Toyabe and Dieter Braun
Physical Review X 9, 011056

Continuous nonenzymatic cross-replication of DNA strands with in situ activated DNA oligonucleotides

Evgeniia Edeleva, Annalena Salditt, Julian Stamp, Philipp Schwintek, Job Boekhoven and Dieter Braun
Chemical Science 10, 5807 - 5814, doi:10.1039/C9SC00770A (2019)

Optochemical disequilibrium to measure biomolecule charge

Friederike M. Möller, Michael Kieß, Christof Mast and Dieter Braun
Physical Review E 98, 062601 (2018) doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.98.062601

Proton Gradient and pH oscillations emerge from heat flow at the microscale

Lorenz Keil, Friederike Möller, Michael Kieß, Patrick Kudella and Christof Mast
Nature Communication 8, 1897 (2017)
doi:10.1038/s41467-017-02065-3

Common coding variant in SERPINA1 increases the risk for large artery stroke

Rainer Malika, Therese Daub, Maria Gonik, Anirudh Sivakumar, Daniel J. Deredge, Evgeniia V. Edeleva, Jessica Götzfried, Sander W. van der Laan, Gerard Pasterkamp, Nathalie Beaufort, Susana Seixas, Steve Bevan, Lisa F. Lincz, Elizabeth G. Holliday, Annette I. Burgess, Kristiina Rannikmäe, Jens Minnerup, Jennifer Kriebel, Melanie Waldenberger, Martina Müller-Nurasyid, Peter Lichtner, Danish Saleheen, International Stroke Genetics Consortium, Peter M. Rothwell, Christopher Levi, John Attia, Cathie L. M. Sudlow, Dieter Braun, Hugh S. Markus, Patrick L. Wintrode, Klaus Berger, Dieter E. Jenne, and Martin Dichgans
PNAS (2017) doi: 10.1073/pnas.1616301114

Reversible Switching of Cooperating Replicators

Georg C. Urtel, Thomas Rind and Dieter Braun Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 078102 (2017)
doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.078102

Pressetext der LMU

Quantitative analysis of protease recognition by inhibitors in plasma using microscale thermophoresis

T. Dau, E. V. Edeleva, S. A. I. Seidel, R. A. Stockley, Dieter Braun & D. E. Jenne
Scientific Reports (2016) doi: 10.1038/srep35413

Probing of molecular replication and accumulation in shallow heat gradients through numerical simulations

Lorenz Keil, Michael Hartmann, Simon Lanzmich and Dieter Braun
PCCP (2016) doi: 10.1039/C6CP00577B

Photochemical microscale electrophoresis allows fast quantification of biomolecule binding

Friederike M. Möller, Michael Kieß, Dieter Braun
JACS (2016) doi: 10.1021/jacs.6b01756

Heat-Flow-Driven Oligonucleotide Gelation Separates Single-Base Differences

Matthias Morasch, Dieter Braun, and Christof B. Mast
Angewandte Chemie (2016) doi: 10.1002/anie.201603779

Quantitative thermophoretic study of disease-related protein aggregates

Manuel Wolff, Judith Mittag, Therese Herling, Erwin De Genst, Christopher Dobson, Tuomas Knowles, Dieter Braun, Alexander Buell
Scientific Reports (2016) doi:10.1038/srep22829

Single molecule imaging in living Drosophila embryos with reflected light-sheet microscopy

Ferdinand Greiss, Myrto Deligiannaki, Christophe Jung, Ulrike Gaul, Dieter Braun
Biophysical Journal (2016) doi 10.1016/j.bpj.2015.12.035

Thermooptical molecule sieve on the microscale

Natan Osterman and Dieter Braun
Applied Physics Letters (2015) doi 10.1063/1.4907357

Understanding the similarity in thermophoresis between single- and double-stranded DNA or RNA

Maren Reichl, Mario Herzog, Ferdinand Greiss, Manuel Wolff, and Dieter Braun
Physical Review E 91,062709 (2015), doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.91.062709

Heat flux across an open pore enables the continuous replication and selection of oligonucleotides towards increasing length

Moritz Kreysing, Lorenz Keil, Simon Lanzmich and Dieter Braun
Nature Chemistry (2015) doi:10.1038/nchem.2155
News in ScienceMag, News and Views by Irene Chen, Science's Editors Choice, Chemistry World, Science Daily, Scinexx, Nature World News, Tech Times, Press release, Radio Eins, Der Spiegel, Deutschlandfunk.

Stefan Duhr and Philipp Baaske

with their Team won the Gründerpreis in the category "Aufsteiger"
for the NanoTemper Technologies Startup. Congratulations!

Thermophoretic Manipulation of Molecules Inside Living Cells

Maren R. Reichl and Dieter Braun
JACS 136, 15955–15960 (2014) doi:10.1021/ja506169b
Article on Phys.org

Our lab was able to win funding ($1.500.000 over five years) by the
Collaboration on the Origins of Life Investigator Award!

The competition was stiff: 2 out of 140 were funded.

Why charged molecules move across a temperature gradient: the role of electric fields

Maren Reichl, Mario Herzog, Alexandra Götz and Dieter Braun
Physical Review Letters 112, 198101 (2014)
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.198101
Synopsis in PRL, Press release.

Dry polymerization of 3',5'-cyclic GMP to long strands of RNA

Matthias Morasch, Christof Mast, Johannes Langer, Pierre Schilcher and Dieter Braun, ChemBioChem 15, 879–883 (2014), doi: 10.1002/cbic.201300773

Übersichtsartikel: Lebendiges Nichtgleichgewicht

Christof Mast, Friederike M. Möller und Dieter Braun
Physik Journal 10, 29 (2013) [PDF]
RadioWissen broadcast on the Origin of Life [22Min.]

Escalation of Polymerization in a Thermal Gradient

Christof B. Mast, Severin Schink, Ulrich Gerland and Dieter Braun
PNAS 110, 8030-8035 (2013), doi:10.1073/pnas.1303222110 [PDF]
Beitrag im Deutschlandfunk