Stefan Schiller
Fellowship 2015
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Stefan M. Schiller studied chemistry at the Justus Liebig University Gießen, the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz. He received his diploma in organic chemistry in 1998 from the Johannes Gutenberg University. After working on a research project in the main laboratory of the BASF AG, he joined the MPI for Polymer Science where he completed his Ph.D. on biomimetic supramolecular membrane architectures. During this time he performed research at the IBM Research Center Almaden, San Jose, Stanford University, the Biotechnology Engineering Department, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel and the Manuel Lujan Los Alamos Neutron Scattering Center, Los Alamos. From 2004-2008 he has been a postdoctoral fellow working with Prof. Peter G. Schultz at the Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California in the field of chemical biology and synthetic biology. In 2008, he joined the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS) at the Albert-Ludwigs-University in Freiburg, as junior research fellow in the School for Soft Matter Research until 2013. In 2014 he got awarded the BMBF-research price “2014” focusing on the modular expansion of cell functions.
Bio-based nano-mechano responsive films: A new step towards soft-mechanochemistry
Freiburg-Strasbourg Fellows: Pierre Schaaf et Stefan Schiller
Post-doc: Ashit Rao
The development of chemo-mechano-responsive systems, systems that respond chemically to a mechanical stimulus, is an emerging field in chemistry. Most of the systems developed so far are based on affecting internal chemical bonds when molecules are put under a mechanical stress. Nature on the other hand transforms a mechanical force into a chemical signal by using force induced conformational changes of proteins.
The goal of the project is to develop chemo-mechano-responsive systems relying on this simple idea: developing systems which respond chemically to stretching by modifying their conformation. This approach can be called Soft-Mechano-Chemistry. For this purpose we will design avidin monomer mutants. The mutations will allow to covalently anchor these proteins onto an elastomeric substrate and to weaken the avidin interaction with biotin upon stretching. This should allow modulating mechanically the avidin/biotin binding strength.
This project should result in the first system where the ligand/receptor interaction can be modulated by force-induced conformational changes. It should also constitute a new type of biointeraction platform for biosensing and tissue engineering which can be modulated mechanically.
