Kerstin Göpfrich

Curious about RNA, aptamers, lipid membranes, molecular dynamics simulations, synthetic cells - and how these topics come together? Join @floppleton.bsky.social's talk in the unano webinar blogs.ed.ac.uk/unanowebinars

RNA droplets that grow and segregate by ribozyme catalysis. Check out our latest preprint www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.29.673008v1

@tranmai.bsky.social handed in her PhD thesis! Celebrating in style with egg coffee from Hanoi, Mai's place of birth. P.S.: Mai is looking for a PostDoc position! Check out her latest RNA nanostructures for synthetic cells @natnano.nature.com doi.org/10.1038/s415...

DNA hydrogels as mechanical sensors in cell-culture systems by @towalther.bsky.social 🧬🧬🧬

If you catch him at a conference bar, ask him the story, it’s an adventure and a half!

Head of the Cell Biology and Biophysics Unit The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) is Europe’s flagship life sciences organisation, and one of the world’s leading research institutions. An intergovernmental organisation of 29 Member S...

EMBL Cell Biology and Biophysics department is searching for a new director. A major position to lead this field in Europe and beyond.
embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/EMBL/j...

So excited to finally be able to share this manuscript!! Thanks to all collaborators for making this possible! Special thanks to @kgoepfrich.bsky.social and @xaviertrepat.bsky.social for their guidance and supervision in this!

Preprint by @towalther.bsky.social at al! We design DNA hydrogel microparticles with sequence-controlled stiffness from 30 Pa to 6.5 kPa. They are remodelled in fibroblast spheroids www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Thanks @ibecbarcelona.eu @xaviertrepat.bsky.social @pcusachs.bsky.social

Screenshot der ersten halben Seite des im Post verlinkten Print-Artikels mit Überschrift "Künstliche Cytoskelette aus RNA-Origami" sowie Vorspann und einigen Textzeilen. Zentral das Foto einer Konfokalmikroskopie von Cytoskelett-ähnlichen RNA-Origami-Nanoröhrchen.

Leben aus toter Materie zu erschaffen ist ein zentrales Thema der Synthetischen Biologie. @kgoepfrich.bsky.social‬ et al. liefern dazu RNA-Origami-Strukturen, die sich selbst organisieren und eine cytoskelettartige Architektur aufbauen. Holger Dill berichtet mehr: www.laborjournal.de/rubric/journ...

Engineering Life 2025: ORIGIN AND FUNCTION OF MECHANICAL FORCES IN BIOLOGY Engineering Life 2025, biological forces, force spectroscopy, measuring forces, developmental forces, molecular motors, forces in morphogenesis, cytoskeleton, DNA mechanics, bionanotechnology

📢Conference alert📢

Only one week left to register for the Engineering Life 2025 Symposium at Dresden September 1-3. This year's edition focuses on the function of mechanical forces in biology.

engineering-life-dresden.de

pyFuRNAce Alt Text

#SCNAC2025 we are looking forward to hear about your thoughts on our RNA design tool #PyFuRNAce pyfurnace.streamlit.app developed by @monari-luca.bsky.social

Good, well educated PhD student

I watched too many traction force microscopy talks - maybe that community recognizes the characteristic move!

I am excited to be talking to @neildegrassetyson.com soon! What should I tell him from his German fan community?

Thank you! Lots of new synbio funded in Germany with Biosystem Design in Munich, Microbes for Climate in Marburg and SynthImmune in Heidelberg, I think that's a win for the field as a whole - following Evolve in the Netherlands!

News on clusters of excellence in Germany. The DFG has announced the continuation of 45 projects already funded and 25 new clusters

Congrats to the SynCellEU community members - Kerstin Gopfrich, Tobias Erb and more - whose applications have been successful and who will receive funding for 7 years

A nice thread on our recent paper in Nature Nanotechnology by the first author and PhD student from the group @tranmai.bsky.social 👇

#SynthImmune is getting real! Super excited that our excellence cluster got funded today @dfg.de Thanks to everyone involved @uniheidelberg.bsky.social, especially @dimichelelab1.bsky.social and Oliver Fackler!

New technology challenges communication inside and outside the classroom, as my recent paper explains. Fingers crossed we get to explore this question soon for emerging synthetic biotechnology within SynthImmune
www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10....

YouTube video by UniHeidelberg SFB 1638 Umbau von zellulären Membranen – wie veränderte Form Funktion schafft

Our PIs Kerstin (@kgoepfrich.bsky.social) and Michael (@meineckelab.bsky.social) joined Wolfgang Heim to talk about scientific CVs, engaging in public outreach and the wonders of cellular membrane remodelling. Don’t miss the SFB1638 edition of Überlebensstrategien — now streaming!

On the show, we also talk about the potential of bottom up synthetic biology approaches for immunology - the aim of our excellence cluster SynthImmune (in German). We hope to get funded!

Awesome, congrats! Looking forward to take this further together, hopefully within our excellence cluster SynthImmune - fingers crossed for 22nd May!

Bottom-up synthetic immunology - Nature Nanotechnology This Perspective highlights bottom-up molecular engineering and modular nanobiotechnological approaches for developing effective immunotherapeutics and their potential in personalized medicine.

The SynthImmune project by Heidelberg University& partner institutes advances a "bottom-up" synthetic biology approach to immunotherapies.
Hoping they do well in the German government's Excellence Strategy—anticipating the announcement on 22 May.

Perspective article: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Mass‐Guided Single‐Cell MALDI Imaging of Low‐Mass Metabolites Reveals Cellular Activation Markers The PRISM-MS workflow transforms single-cell mass spectrometry imaging by allowing detailed analysis of low-mass metabolites in large cell populations without metabolite degradation. By introducing n...

An exciting new approach in single-cell metabolomics from two SFB1638 groups! Carsten Hopf’s group from CeMOS with support from the Göpfrich lab (@kgoepfrich.bsky.social) unveil tech that tracks brain cell changes linked to neurodegeneration.

advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Boosting to the 🧬Molecular Programming🧬 feed! Check out our new design tool at PyFuRNAce.de! I particularly like the “make simple origami” button, which makes it so easy to get a base structure which you can functionalize!

Biologie aus dem Baukasten Ingenieure, Informatiker, Chemiker und Biologen kreieren künstliche biologische Systeme. Die synthetische Biologie verändert die Zukunft und definiert die Grenzen der Wissenschaft neu.

There is a German language video of a TV discussion on "Biology From the Building Block" in which ZMBH's Kerstin Goepfrich @kgoepfrich.bsky.social was one of the two invided experts: www.3sat.de/wissen/scobe...

Excited to announce the Molecular Biology of Archaea (MBoA) 2026!

Join us in Cambridge, UK, from 6–10 July 2026 for the only international meeting dedicated to Archaea.

PyFuRNAce: An integrated design engine for RNA origami To realize the full potential of RNA nanotechnology and RNA origami, user-friendly design tools are needed. Here, we present pyFuRNAce, an open-source, Python-based software package with a graphical u...

Hey #RNA world, we are excited to share our RNA design engine #pyFuRNAce - an integrated tool for RNA origami experts and novices alike. Kudos to @monari-luca.bsky.social @floppleton.bsky.social et al! Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Try it out at pyfurnace.de Feedback welcome!

#germanbiotechdays2025 #dbt2025 #ppp #publicprivatepartnerships #dbt2025… | Health + Life Science Alliance 🧬Great opportunity for exchange between representatives of biotech companies, researchers, and transfer technology experts happened during Germany's largest biotech event, the #GermanBiotechDays20...

🧬Great opportunity for exchange between representatives of biotech companies, researchers, and transfer technology experts happened during the #GermanBiotechDays2025 in Heidelberg.
Health & Life Science Alliance acted as academic partner for the event.
Keynote speech by @kgoepfrich.bsky.social

Awesome talk by @petrsulc.bsky.social today at #BioQuant on self-assembly of DNA- and RNA-origami. Check out e.g. their design of a crystal that avoids kinetic traps while growing doi.org/10.1126/scie...

Thank you for sharing so much cool science on DNA self-assembly!