Group leader Matthias Fischer has been awarded a prestigious Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council. His research into the diversity, functions, and evolution of giant viruses will be funded for five years with 2.4 million Euros.

Researchers of the Chemical Biology Department, Corentin Gondrand and Estelle Bonedeau, inspired the jury with their solution for portable, at home blood testing for patients. They were awarded in the category for social innovation at the Heidelberg University event on May 11th.

Pushing the MINFLUX technique to higher spatial and temporal precision allows protein dynamics to be observed under physiological conditions. Scientists at the MPIMR observe the stepping motion of the motor protein kinesin-1 as it walks along microtubules at an unprecedented level of detail. The work highlights the power of MINFLUX as a revolutionary new tool for observing nanometer-sized conformational changes in proteins. The work was recently published in Science.