Professor Hendrik Dietz by Becca Landry

    Professor Hendrik Dietz holds the position of Full Professor for Biophysics at the Technische Universität München (Technical University of Munich) where he is also the Principal Director of the Laboratory for Molecular Design. He has an extensive educational background, having graduated with degrees in Physics from Universität Paderborn in Germany, Universidad de Zaragoza in Spain, and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in Germany, with a thesis in “Mechanik des Grün Fluoreszierenden Proteins” (Mechanics of Green Fluorescent Protein) from the latter. He also earned his doctorate in Physics from where he works now with the thesis “Mechanische Anisotropie einer Proteinstruktur in Einzelmolekülexperimenten” (Mechanical Anisotropy of a Protein Structure in Single-molecule Experiments). 

    I chose to write this prompt about Dietz after finding an article about his recent research. In that project, he and other physicists created DNA origami molecular rotors in an effort to recreate the molecular machinery of life and its efficiency in rotation. DNA origami is done by “sequence-programmable DNA self-assembly” where many base pairs are lined up and put into a solution to form a 3-D structure independently given their code, and structures are confirmed via cryo electron microscopy. This electrical motor rotates by applying an alternating current electric field. Future ideas with this work include looking into using chemical fuel to power the rotation, or alternatively, researching the use of rotation to “drive uphill chemical synthesis.” His lab is also working on creating structures, again using DNA as building blocks, to trap viruses within the body to prevent the infection from spreading. They are currently performing in vivo efficacy tests to better understand how to apply this new technology to contain infection in mice. 

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdeu2XGcKyU&t=1425s 

https://www.dietzlab.org/ 

https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.1.20220818a/full/