Researchers at the Center for Soft Nanoscience (SoN) prepare synthetic materials based on biological models such as addressable nanocontainers or materials that switch their function in response to an external trigger. Besides these fundamental investigations, the high-precision tools required to make and analyze these nanomaterials are developed at the SoN.
The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded Prof Seraphine Wegner with an ERC Consolidator Grant worth 2.4 million euros. With this grant, the EU is supporting the five-year “Lighthouse” project, which aims to get biological cells to communicate with each other using light signals. Seraphine Wegner and her team want to develop a new form of communication between cells that does not yet exist in nature and is based on light rather than chemical signals. University News
A total of around 25 million euros will go to CRC 1450 "inSight: Imaging organ-specific inflammation using multiscale imaging" and CRC 1459 "Intelligent matter: from responsive to adaptive nanosystems". The CRC "Intelligent Matter" is inspired by the vision that synthetic matter could provide artificial building blocks that enable intelligent capabilities. A central building is the "Centre for Soft Nanoscience" at the University of Münster, where research groups from the natural and life sciences work with state-of-the-art nanoanalytical methods. University News
The MNF invites everyone to join us on our annual open day in SoN and CeNTech on the 6th of November. This year’s event promises to be as engaging as always, with multidisciplinary talks from leading experts in nanoanalytics and fabrication and opportunities for connecting with the companies that supply our cutting-edge equipment. Münster Nanofabrication Facility
In order to better understand the mechanism of calcium influx into the presynaptic membrane, Prof Christos Gatsogiannis and Prof Andreas Heuer, used high-performance cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) and molecular dynamics (MD) computer simulations. They showed that the toxin undergoes a remarkable transformation when it binds to the receptor. University News
The University of Twente has appointed Prof. Bart Jan Ravoo as unremunerated professor of Intelligent Soft Materials at the Department of Molecules & Materials S&T for the duration of 5 years. University of Twente news
A research team led by physicist Prof Ursula Wurstbauer is investigating how the properties of two-dimensional crystals stacked on top of each other can be controlled to exhibit different behaviours, e.g. as an insulator, an electrical conductor, a superconductor and a ferromagnet. University News
Carsten Schuck’s research group is designing, building and testing a receiver unit for a quantum key generation process and the operation of secure communication in a gas pipeline system produced by PSI Software SE. “Any attempt at eavesdropping would be noticed immediately, rendering the key generation system independent of the measuring devices,” explains Carsten Schuck. They are building and testing the chips at the Münster Nanofabrication Facility (MNF) and the Centre for NanoTechnology (CeNTech). University News
A team led by Prof Frank Glorius has now developed an evolutionary algorithm that searches for optimal molecular representations based on the principles of evolution, using mechanisms such as reproduction, mutation and selection. It identifies the molecular structures that are particularly relevant to the respective question and uses them to encode molecules for various machine-learning models. University news
