Prof. Dr. Kerstin Göpfrich

Profes­sor at the Center for Molec­u­lar Biology of Heidel­berg University

Research Group Leader MPI for Medicl Research

Pinci­pal Inves­ti­ga­tor, Cluster of Excel­lence 3D Matter Made to Order (3DMM2O)

Since Novem­ber 2022, Kerstin Göprich is a full profes­sor at the Center for Molec­u­lar Biology of Heidel­berg Univer­sity. She contin­ues to lead a research group in the field of biophys­i­cal engineer­ing at the Max Planck Insti­tute for Medical Research in Heidel­berg. Kerstin Göprich is also Princi­pal Inves­ti­ga­tor in the Cluster of Excel­lence "3D Matter Made to Order" carried out by the Karlsruhe Insti­tute of Technol­ogy (KIT) and Heidel­berg Univer­sity and Fellow of the Max Planck School "Matter to Life".

Her research focuses on the construc­tion of artifi­cial cells from custom-engineered compo­nents. With the help of DNA/RNA nanotech­nol­ogy, functional compo­nents are created that equip lipid vesicles with proper­ties of living cells. For example, the team succeeded in produc­ing artifi­cial cytoskele­tons or control­ling the division of synthetic cells.

In 2022, Kerstin Göpfrich was awarded the ERC Start­ing Grant. Her ERC project “ENSYNC – From engineer­ing to evolu­tion of synthetic cells with RNA origami” deals with the evolu­tion of artifi­cial cells. Further­more, Kerstin Göpfrich received, among others, the Women Inter­ac­tive Materi­als Award for her work on materi­als with life-like proper­ties. She was awarded a Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow­ship and received one of the presti­gious Gates Cambridge Fellow­ships from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Research fields

Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Engineer­ing & Medicine