Welcome to the Braun lab on Systems Biophysics !

We are interested in constructing biosystems to probe and evolve living matter.

Our interest spreads from studying the behaviour of biomolecules in temperature gradients, to light driven microfluidics, building optothermal molecule traps, studying kinetics in living cells and probing early molecular evolution experimentally by creating autonomous, synthetic evolving systems.

Along the way we develop methods which might be essential for future systems biology. For example, we developed all-optical methods to move small molecules and fluids, measure the binding affinity of biomolecules in complex biological fluids such as serum, studied molecular crowding with an optothermal CCD-lockin approach and will combine convection with PCR to create DNA replication and selection in a single microchamber. The latter implements conditions in hydrothermal vents and show new ways to hypothesize on the origin of life at the ocean seafloor.

We drive to apply the methods in biotechnology. Stefan Duhr and Philipp Baaske have founded the startup companyNanoTemper Technologies to provide and develop thermophoretic biomolecule analytics.

Selected recent publications

Hybridization Kinetics is Different Inside Cells

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

An Optical Conveyor for Molecules

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

Light driven microflow in ice

Franz M. Weinert, Max Wühr and Dieter Braun
Applied Physics Letters 94, 113901 (2009)

Optically driven fluid flow
along arbitrary microscale patterns
using thermoviscous expansion

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

Observation of Slip Flow in Thermophoresis

Franz M. Weinert and Dieter Braun
Physical Review Letters 101, 168301 (2008)

Microscale Fluid Flow Induced by
Thermoviscous Expansion Along a Traveling Wave

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)]