Research

I'm broadly interested in structure-property relationship: During my PhD, I investigated the mechanics of a specific type of biopolymers, cytoskeletal filaments, and then moved on to the structure of phase-separating proteins, biomolecular condensates, during my PostDoc. In my independent research group we will also dive deep into the structure-property relationships of soft and biological materials.

Here, are a few highlights of my current and previous research topics.

PostDoc:

Until December 2025, I'll be a PostDoc with Eric Dufresne at Cornell University and Ben Schuler at University of Zurich. My work is supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) with a Walter Benjamin-fellowship.

Structures of phase-separating materials

We're currently using a small-angle X-ray scattering and a combination of dynamic light scattering and fluorescence correlation spectroscopy to unravel the supramolecular structure of phase-separating proteins, i.e. their structure on scales of 10-100 nm. This regime is hard to access with "typical" fluorescence spectroscopy which accesses scales above 200 nm and also with methods working on the molecular level. The results are very exciting, but not yet unpublished. We're currently writing up this work and expect it to be online early 2026. If you're curious what we found, feel free to reach out and/or come to one of my talks at conferences. 

If you have a phase-separating protein and are curious about it's structure, let me know! We'd be super happy to scatter from it to decipher its structure. (contact: cml353@cornell.edu)

We're also transferring our small-angle X-ray scattering approach to non-biological, soft materials right now.

I'd like to highlight a few works I've been contributing to during my PostDoc:

Phase-separated droplets swim to their dissolution (dialytaxis)

Etienne Jambon-Puillet worked on the dissolution of droplets, which swim towards their dissolution in an ion gradient. Read his paper here for the full story.

You do need to watch the supplementary videos (particularly S4) of this paper.

Microtubule plus-tip binding protein Bik1 phase-separates into a fluid fractal network

Mateusz Czub lead a study on the structure of the phase-separating protein Bik1. It includes a combination of methods and shows that the protein self-assembles into a liquid fractal with a dimension of 2!

PhD

I pursued my PhD in the group of Sarah Köster at the University of Göttingen.  My co-advisor was Stefan Klumpp. The general topic of my dissertation was the "Interactions Within and Between Cytoskeletal Filaments". My work was supported with a PhD fellowship of the Studienstiftung.

Keratin filament mechanics and energy dissipation are determined by metal-like plasticity

A specific type of biopolymer, keratin filaments, mechanically behaves like metals! This is somewhat super exciting since it's a biological material that has metal-like mechanisms. We studied these mechanics with a combination of optical tweezers, a microfluidic device, fluorescence microscopy and coarse-grained simulations. Read the full story here.

The important mechanism inside keratin filaments is the sliding of subunits inside filaments. One of my early papers highlights this story as well.

Vimentin intermediate filaments stabilize microtubules by direct interactions

I was very lucky to lead together with Laura Schaedel our work on the interactions of two cytoskeletal biopolymers, vimentin intermediate filaments and microtubules. We showed that vimentin intermediate filaments stabilize dynamic microtubules by direct interactions. We observed the microtubule dynamics with TIRF microscopy and studied the direct interactions of these two single biopolymers with optical tweezers.

Outside of academia

(Yay, you made it to the bottom of the page.)

I enjoy a variety of activities outside academia, this includes gravitational-associates sports such as climbing, sledding and "go böötle" (Swissgerman). Such activities typically help me to reset and inspire my thoughts. I leave it up to you to associate each photo with an activity.

(Climbing at Ibergeregg, sledding in Grindelwald featuring Eiger, Bööteln on the Limmat)