- February 2023
Five of Denmark’s most talented young researchers receives this year’s EliteForsk awards. Congratulations Alex! Full story here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ministry-of-science-innovation-and-higher-education_alexander-kai-b%C3%BCll-eliteforsk-prismodtager-activity-7033765331646959616-qwFN?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
Congratulations Alex on receiving an 2 M Euro European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator grant for his project “Exploring the molecular grammar of IDP assembly and condensation at ultra-high throughput” with the acronym EMMA.
Building on recent years of cutting edge method development, Alex will tackle the final frontier in protein science by developing a fundamentally new approach that will ultimately allow to improve on current in vitro methods of sequence space exploration of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) by more than 8 orders of magnitude.
EMMA is aimed to transform our understanding of the mechanisms and interrelationships of the interactions and assembly processes that define IDP function and disease-related malfunction, opening up new avenues for therapeutic and diagnostic interventions in diseases related to IDP assembly.
In his words, ‘I am thrilled to have been awarded an ERC consolidator grant to pursue an ambitious basic science project for the next 5 years. I can’t wait to get started with all the cool science we’ll be doing. But on this day of joy, my thoughts go out to those two thirds of interviewed applicants who invested themselves as much as I did and for whom it didn’t work out this time. My message to you is: keep going, your time will come. 4 years ago, my application was rejected, and rightly so. It wasn’t ready. 4 years of hard work, and hard thinking, and it was ready.’
- November 2022
Alex receives one of the Lundbeckfonden / Lundbeck Foundation Experiment grants, which he holds simultaneously with a VILLUM FONDEN # VELUX FONDEN (THE VELUX FOUNDATIONS) Experiment grant (on totally unrelated topics). These are the best grants out there, to enable scientists to boldly try new, crazy ideas.
Azad, Antonin and Alex are excited to be in Riga for ADAM9, the Nordic conference on protein aggregation. They use a free afternoon to pay tribute to one of the founders of Physical Chemistry, Wilhelm Ostwald, who was born in Riga and did important work here.
Our lab recieves a brand new Labbot, the Swiss Army Knife of Protein Characterization. Thank you, Labbot and team!
New member– Lars Boyens-Thiele joins our group as a Ph.D. scholar. Welcome, Lars!
- June 2022
- May 2022
Our pre-print on “Mass photometric detection and quantification of nanoscale α-synuclein phase separation” is now online on the BiorXiv. Soumik has been able to directly visualize nanometric clusters (see picture above) that act as pre-cursors for macroscopic droplets of alpha-synuclein LLPS.
Our whole SEEDFOOD crew (Alex, Kyu, Wang, Lars) attends the SEEDFOOD kick off meeting at the University of Copenhagen. Two nice days of science and fund. Great to meet everybody who is on board SEEDFOOD.
Alex, Rasmus and Soumik attend the conference “Cellular mechanisms driven by phase separation” in Heidelberg at the EMBL. Great opportunity to discuss our latest work with the expert community.
Celina Schulz finishes her short visit and goes back to Düsseldorf University.
Abigail Barclay finishes her short visit and goes back to the University of Copenhagen.
- April 2022
Celina Schulz joins our group as visiting PhD student from the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. Celina works in the group of Prof. Wolfgang Hoyer and explores mechanisms of inhibition of alpha-synuclein amyloid fibril formation by affibodies.
Abigail Barclay joins group as a visiting PhD student from the group of Prof. Lise Arleth at the Niels Bohr Institute of the University of Copenhagen.
Alex, Kyu and Wang attend the Food Colloid conference in Lund. Fast track into the field of food science that we have entered through the SEEDFOOD project.
- March 2022
Christin Pohl joins the group as a DFF funded postdoc. She will be working at Lund University in the group of our collaborator Sara Linse.
Start of our project on improved seed amplification assays for disease diagnostics, funded by the MJFF foundation, and in collaboration with the company Lundbeck.
Soumik is awarded a prestigious Marie Curie postdoc grant. Amazing, and well done Soumik. We are very much looking forward to having you around for another two years!
- February 2022
Shuangyan Wang joins the group as postdoc in the SEEDFOOD project, from ETH Zurich. Welcome Wang!
Lars joins group as Master’s student in the SEEDFOOD project. Lars has already done a special course with us. Welcome back!
- January 2022
New member-Our first employee of the SEEDFOOD project, Suk Kyu Ko, joins our group. Welcome Kyu!
Our first publication of 2022 is online at ACS Nano. Nice collaboration with Hossein Mohammad-Beigi. Hossein was able to perform a detailed characterization of a protein corona on the ability of polymer nanoparticles to facilitate the nucleation of alpha-synuclein amyloid fibrils.
- December 2021
Alexander gives seminars at the Centre for Misfolding Diseases (Cambridge, UK) annual meeting, at DTU Biosustain and at the company Novozymes
Our postdoc, Soumik writes a behind the paper commentary on the Capflex paper in Springer Nature protocols and methods community.
Our publication presenting our new method to study protein liquid-liquid-phase separation, Capflex, is published in Nature Communications. Congratulations to Emil, Soumik, Rasmus, Jacob and Azad. Great teamwork, and the fist publication with research 100% performed at DTU.
Our guest PhD student from Amsterdam, Juami van Gils, leaves again. It was great to have had you around, Juami. All the best!
Our PhD student Jacob receives funding for an extended stay at the Technion in Haifa, in the laboratory of Prof. Meytal Landau. Congratulations, Jacob!
- November 2021
Most of our group attends the Linderstrøm-Lang Centre Symposium at the University of Copenhagen. It is nice to attend an in person meeting and network with the Danish biophysics community!
Our PhD student Rasmus goes on a scientific visit to the group of Prof. Simon Alberti at the University of Dresden. Have fun in one of the leading centers of protein condensate research!
- October 2021
Our PhD students Rasmus and Jacob give a joint presentation at the FIDAbio user meeting in Copenhagen. They talk about our new method, Capflex, which allows detailed and high throughput studies of protein liquid-liquid phase separation.
New member-Juami van Gils, a PhD student from Amsterdam joins the group as a guest PhD student for three months. Welcome Juami!
Alexander is awarded an Ascending Investigator grant from the Lundbeck Foundation. This will enable us to work for the next 4 years on the role of amyloid fibril thermodynamic stability in neurodegeneration. Big thank you to the Lundbeck Foundation.
- September 2021
Postdoc position for an experimentalist who has experience in recombinant protein production and wants to learn some advanced biophysics. We offer a 2+1 year postdoc position at DTU Bioengineering and the work will be carried out in collaboration DTU Biosustain. You would produce and study rapeseed proteins for a deep understanding of their properties and interactions, with the final aim to enable their use in food
Are you a computational biophysicist and you want to make a difference in the transition towards a more sustainable food production? Then get in touch! We have a one year postdoc position to help us get started with our ambitious SEEDFOOD project, funded by the NNF. You would be doing simulations and structural analysis to help us guide our experiments.
We are soon going to start working on the Biophysics of plant seed storage proteins, in the context of the project SEEDFOOD, led by Marianne Nissen Lund of the University of Copenhagen’s department of Food Science. Our contribution to SEEDFOOD will be a biophysical characterization of these types of proteins and their interactions with other components relevant for food, such as lipids or saliva components, at unprecedented levels of detail.
New member-Lars Boyens-Thiele joins the group as a project student. Welcome Lars!
- August 2021
New member-Tom Mason joins the lab as a postdoc and he will help us with our various microfluidics-related projects. Welcome Tom!
- July 2021
Our paper on a de novo sequencing workflow of immunoglobulin light chains by mass spectrometry is accepted in Analytical Chemistry! Great collaboration with Julia Chamot-Rooke’s team at the Institut Pasteur in Paris.
- June 2021
New member-Azad Farzadfard joins the lab and he will work on alpha-synuclein amyloid fibril formation. Welcome Azad!
The SEEDFOOD project, in which we are co-applicant, is granted by the NNF! 6 years ahead of us in which we can explore the basic biophysics of plant seed storage proteins with the aim to transform them ultimately into something fit for human consumption.
- April 2021
New member-Soumik Ray joins the lab as a postdoc and he will work on massive exploration of the sequence space of protein liquid-liquid phase separation. Welcome Soumik!
- March 2021
Alex gives an online presentation at the LINXS Amyloid workshop – Heart and Mind: linking in vitro science to the clinical context.
Protein Biophysics at DTU Bioengineering 