DFG establishes new Research Unit led by Prof. Nils Kröger (B CUBE)

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) has approved the establishment of a new Research Unit "Nanopatterned Organic Matrices in Biological Silica Mineralization" led by the Technische Universität Dresden (TUD). Prof. Nils Kröger (B CUBE - Center for Molecular Bioengineering at TUD) and Prof. Eike Brunner (Bioanalytical Chemistry, TUD) are speaker and co-speaker of the consortium that will start its research work in January 2014. DFG is initially funding this project for the next three years with 1.7 Mio EUR in total.

The project combines expertise from a number of different fields: biochemistry, cell biology, bio-organic and bio-inorganic chemistry, bio-nanomaterials science and biphysics as well as computational modelling. The aim of the Research Unit is to obtain a detailed understanding of the biomolecule-controlled nano- and microscale processes that enable diatoms to produce their intricately patterned silica-based cell walls.

Diatoms are a large group of unicellular microalgae that belong to the most important primary producers in our oceans. The most impressive characteristic of diatoms is their unusual structure of cell walls. There are more than 10,000 species of diatoms known, and each builds its silica shell in its own specific shape and with its own nano-scale pattern of pores.

Here you can find the full press release (in German).

Link to official press release of DFG.