We congratulate one of our e-conversion members on a remarkable success: Prof. Knut Müller-Caspary is part of a research team awarded one of the prestigious Synergy Grants of the European Research Council (ERC). Interdisciplinary teams of two to four scientists are funded for six years with up to 14 million euros.
Müller-Caspary’s work uses transmission electron microscopy to focus on the structural, chemical, and electrical characterization of nanostructures with subatomic resolution. Developing new measurement methods for electron microscopy is vital to his activities. Electron microscopy has significantly advanced life sciences, physics, and materials science. Cryo-electron microscopy, for example, makes examining proteins with a resolution of up to 1.0 Å is possible.
Prof. Knut Müller-Caspary at the electron microscope.
In their ERC Synergy project 4D-BioSTEM, Professors Müller-Caspary (LMU), Carsten Sachse (Forschungszentrum Jülich), and Henning Stahlberg (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne) form an interdisciplinary team that brings together approaches from bioscience and physics in an international collaboration. The researchers want to develop new comprehensive concepts for structural imaging using 4-dimensional data sets and test their usefulness for cryo-EM application in the life sciences. “On the other hand, we also want to exploit the synergy between cryo-EM and physical chemistry in relation to subjects such as the research of catalysts and novel solar cells – the kinds of activities we’re pursuing in the e-conversion Cluster of Excellence,” adds Müller-Caspary.
We are delighted to join Prof. Müller-Caspary in wishing him every success in his research work!