The Group

Our group of chemists, physicists, and technical staff works on understanding and controlling structure formation on length scales between 1 and 100 nanometers. The principal tool is electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR or ESR) spectroscopy with an emphasis on distance measurements in the nanometer range between spin probes by advanced pulsed techniques. Measurements between a spin probe or a paramagnetic metal ion and nuclei in the vicinity by electron nuclear double resonance (ENDOR) or electron spin echo envelope modulation (ESEEM) techniques in the subnanometer range complement this information.

We are currently active in four areas:

• development of pulsed ultra-wideband EPR methods for enhancing sensitivity and information content in measurements on spin probes and catalytically active metal centres
• development of spin labelling strategies for protein complexes that rely on the use of spectroscopically orthogonal spin labels and methodology for selective and sensitive distance distribution measurements for the individual label combinations
• structure modelling of proteins and protein complexes based on long-range distance distribution restraints between spin labels and restraints from other experimental techniques
• application of state-of-the-art pulsed EPR methods to protein-RNA complexes, membrane proteins, metal centres in catalysts, and disordered proteins