Bionanoscience (BN) seminar by dr. Sonja Schmid (Wageningen University) on "The timing of life at the nanoscale".  The talk will start at 12:45h.

Abstract:
Proteins are the molecular makers in our body. Researchers successfully identified a vast proteome, a dense web of metabolic interactions, and many thousands of static 3D structures. But the essential dynamic processes causing protein function are still challenging to detect – yet they are the key to the energetics controlling proteins. We therefore focus on acquiring time-resolved information to reveal the nanodynamics of biomolecular systems, such as cancer-assisting chaperone and kinase proteins, biomedical PROTAC systems, and CRISPR-associated proteins.

In this talk, I will present our latest results from optical and electrical single-molecule experiments. FRET allows us to watch single proteins at work in real time [1,2,3], and with our DyeCycling approach [4], we can now overcome its notorious photobleaching limitation and detect previously hidden kinetic phenomena. In addition, we recently presented the NEOtrap 2.0, a label-free technique to monitor the time evolution of single unmodified proteins electrically, using nanopores [5,6]. Lastly, I will share how we revealed the hidden power of type-III CRISPR-Cas – one-by-one. Our overarching mission is to push beyond current detection limits, to learn how biomolecular function arises at the nanoscale.

[1] Hellenkamp, Schmid, et al. (2018) Nature Methods
[2] Schmid, Hugel (2020) eLife
[3] Götz, [27 kinetics experts], Schmid (2022) Nature Communications
[4] Vermeer, Schmid (2022) Nano Research
[5] Schmid, Stömmer, Dietz, Dekker (2021) Nature Nanotechnology
[6] Wen, Bertosin, Shi, Dekker, Schmid (2022) Nano Letters