BMM Seminar with Michael Heymann - Nano 3D printed microfluidics to understand biological dynamics across scales

BMM Seminar with Michael Heymann - Nano 3D printed microfluidics to understand biological dynamics across scales

  • Date: Oct 22, 2018
  • Time: 12:30 PM - 01:15 PM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: Dr. Michael Heymann
  • Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Martinsried
  • Location: MPI for Medical Research
  • Room: Seminar Room A/B
  • Host: Prof. Dr. Ilme Schlichting

Abstract:
Two photon stereolithography is a sub-micron precise 3D printing technique that allowed us to overcome long-standing challenges in microfluidic engineering for applications ranging from time-resolved serial crystallography to synthetic biology.
To understand enzyme catalysis and protein conformational changes at the atomic scale, we pioneered novel ultracompact microfluidics for time-resolved structural biology to record ‘molecular movies’ of substrate turn-over. This method allows to determine the structures of transient states and thereby kinetic mechanisms. We could follow the catalytic reaction of the M. tuberculosis β-lactamase with the 3rd generation antibiotic ceftriaxone with millisecond to second time resolution at 2 Å spatial resolution. We furthermore achieved fast jets exceeding 100 m/s for megahertz serial crystallography at the European XFEL.
In extending this technology to synthetic biology, we can reconstitute functional biological and biomimetic systems from the bottom up with unprecedented precision and throughput. For instances to compartmentalize the E.coli MinDE protein oscillator, that positions the cell division machinery at mid-cell, into physiologically relevant three-dimensional model compartments, such as lipid vesicles.
In current efforts, we are developing novel protein photoresists to nano-3D-print sub-cellular compartments with the highest achievable functional conformity to cellular structures in vivo. In first proof-of-principle experiments we structured a contractile eukaryotic cell division model. Such in vitro model systems will allow to resolve dynamic biological states far from equilibrium to study the hierarchical assembly of active bio-materials, to resolve basic principles of synchronization, morphogenesis and differentiation in confined geometries, as well as for applications in biochemical information processing in the future.

Go to Editor View