T cell differ­en­ti­a­tion and function are tightly regulated by numer­ous cellu­lar processes, includ­ing cellu­lar metab­o­lism, which can be signif­i­cantly affected by mitochon­dr­ial DNA (mtDNA) mutations. However, the impact of mtDNA mutational burden on T cell differ­en­ti­a­tion and functional hetero­gene­ity remains poorly under­stood. Thus, this project aims to charac­ter­ize the mtDNA mutational landscape and its functional conse­quences in human T cells using single-cell multi-omics approaches.

Anelloviruses are a diverse group of ubiqui­tous viruses infect­ing humans and verte­brates. Their contri­bu­tion to disease devel­op­ment remains elusive. We hypoth­e­size that during lifelong, persis­tent infec­tion disbal­ances in the viral commu­nity can drive onset and progres­sion of disease, e.g. cancer. We aim at a thorough descrip­tion of the viral spectrum present in healthy and diseased tissue by high-through­put screen­ing of sequenc­ing data and subse­quent identi­fi­ca­tion of viral variants corre­lated with pathogenesis.

The central paradigm of quantum optics is the absorp­tion and emission of radia­tion by quantum emitters. When the coupling between an emitter and its environ­ment becomes strong, intrigu­ing radia­tive proper­ties can be engineered, such as direc­tional emission patterns or strongly modified emission rates. This project aims at access­ing such effects in a system of ultra­cold atoms in optical lattices where artifi­cial emitters decay by emitting matter waves rather than optical radiation.

This project is focused on the synthe­sis of novel helically chiral compounds contain­ing diaryl­bo­role, arsole and stibole units. The aim of this research is to obtain materi­als with improved optical and electronic proper­ties by joining helical chromophores via boron as a spiro-atom. Addition­ally, helicenes contain­ing arsenic and antimony could be used as ligands in asymmet­ric catal­y­sis due to their higher stabil­ity towards oxida­tion, compared to the common phosphine analogues.

In the EU alone, approx­i­mately 30 million people are affected by a rare disease, many of them children. Most of the 6,000 to 8,000 rare diseases known to date are caused by the altered function of a single gene (Boycott&Ardigó, 2018). This project under the super­vi­sion of Prof. Christoph Klein aims to develop innov­a­tive strate­gies for preci­sion medicine in rare diseases by (i) re-wiring aberrant molec­u­lar networks for thera­peu­tic purposes and (ii) identi­fy­ing novel “druggable” targets using CRISPR-Cas9-mediated genome-wide screens.

Most modern drugs are made up of one handed­ness of a chiral molecule (one enantiomer). In many cases, depend­ing on the handed­ness of the enantiomer, the drug could have either benefi­cial or harmful effects, thus is it desir­able to be able to detect the handed­ness. Circu­lar dichro­ism (CD) spectroscopy can differ­en­ti­ate between the handed­ness due to differ­en­tial absorp­tion of circu­larly polarised light but suffers from weak signals; there­fore, a method that can enhance the signal is desired.

In this project, an innov­a­tive quantum gas micro­scope is devel­oped that makes use of optical tweez­ers to rearrange neutral stron­tium atoms into config­urable and defect-free patterns. This allows for rapid initial­iza­tion of the system and serves as a start­ing point for the analog simula­tion of quantum many-body systems and as a qubit regis­ter for digital quantum comput­ing. Exploit­ing long-range Rydberg inter­ac­tions enables the simula­tion of spin models and the imple­men­ta­tion of quantum logic gates.

SARS-CoV‑2 hat eine Pandemie ausgelöst und ist für mehr als 18 Millio­nen Infek­tio­nen verant­wortlich. Es wird vermutet, dass COVID-19 das Ergeb­nis des Abster­bens infizierter Zellen und einer exzes­siven Aktivierung des Immun­sys­tems ist. Um Zelltypen und Signal­wege zu identi­fizieren, die zur Patho­genese oder viralen Replika­tion beitra­gen, werde ich Transkrip­tom­analy­sen und funktionelle Unter­suchun­gen ausgewählter Gene vornehmen. Diese Arbeit könnte zu der Entwick­lung neuer Thera­pien beitragen.

The project inves­ti­gates the struc­ture, purpose, and mecha­nisms of origin for amorphous carbon formed by methanogenic and methane-oxidiz­ing archaea. I will use advanced biophys­i­cal, compu­ta­tional, and genetic tools to deter­mine the genes, proteins and struc­tures, includ­ing the molec­u­lar mecha­nisms involved in the forma­tion of this carbon. Poten­tial appli­ca­tions will be assessed. The project is super­vised by Hector Fellow Antje Boetius.