Prof. Dr. Seraphine Wegner
"No positions via CiM-IMPRS in 2024"
Light controlled Systems
Cell Biology / Molecular Biology
Biochemistry
Systems Biology
Synthetic Biology
Optogenetics
The research aim of my group is the spatiotemporal control of cell-material and cell-cell interactions and associated processes in natural and synthetic minimal cells by using visible light. These photoswitchable interactions offer non-invasive remote control over cell adhesions, enable us to self-assemble and self-sort cells into multicellular functional architectures with high precision, regulate their interactions with synthetic materials, produce hybrid systems with defined communication and to study the underlying biology. Synthetic minimal cells, which reduce complexity and yet capture key features of natural cells, allow us to quantify and correlate cell behaviour with molecular information. This will enable us to address questions in cell biology as well as engineer new synthetic cell biology.
Vita
- 2005 - 2010 PhD, Dept. of Chemistry/ Univ. of Chicago (US)
- 2010 - 2011 Visiting scientist, Dept. of Chemistry/ Peking Univ. (CN)
- 2011 - 2014 Postdoctoral Fellow, Dept. of New Materials and Biosystems, MPI for Intelligent Systems & Dept. of Biophysical Chemistry, Univ. of Heidelberg (DE)
- 2014 - 2015 Group Leader, Dept. of New Materials and Biosystems, MPI for Intelligent Systems & Dept. of Biophysical Chemistry, Univ. of Heidelberg (DE)
- 2016 - 2020 MaxSynBio and ERC Independent Group Leader, MPI for Polymer Research (DE)
- Since 2019 Full Professor, Institute of Physiological Chemistry and Pathobiochemistry, University of Münster (DE)
Selected references
Xu, D.; Kleineberg, C.; Vidaković-Koch, T.; Wegner, S. V. (2020) Multistimuli Sensing Adhesion Unit for the Self-Positioning of Minimal Synthetic Cells. Small, 2002440.
Mueller, M.; Rasoulinejad, S.; Garg, S.; Wegner, S. V. (2020). The Importance of Cell–Cell Interaction Dynamics in Bottom-Up Tissue Engineering: Concepts of Colloidal Self-Assembly in the Fabrication of Multicellular Architectures. Nano Lett., 20(4):2257.
Xu, D.; Bartelt, S. M.; Rasoulinejad, S.; Chen, F.; Wegner, S. V. (2019) Green light lithography: a general strategy to create active protein and cell micropatterns. Mater. Horiz. 6:1222.
Bartelt, S.M.; Steinkühler, J.; Dimova, R.; Wegner, S.V. (2018) Light guided motility of a minimal synthetic cell. Nano Lett., 18: 7268.
Yüz, S.G.; Ricken, J.; Wegner, S.V. (2018) Independent Control over Multiple Cell Types in Space and Time Using Orthogonal Blue and Red Light Switchable Cell Interactions. Adv. Sci. 5: 1800446.
Links