Dr. Raul Garcia Diez wins the Dissertationspreis Adlershof 2017
Dr. Raul Garcia Diez was awarded for his PhD Thesis with the Dissertationspreis Adlershof 2017.
Jury with nominees and the winner, Dr. Raul Garcia Diez, (left), Photo: Matthias Brandt
With his talk on the properties of nanoparticles and how they can be measured more accurately at BESSY II, Dr. Raul Garcia Diez convinced the jury and was awarded the Dissertationspreis Adlershof 2017. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, IGAFA e. V. and the WISTA MANAGEMENT GmbH are the sponsors of this prize endowed with 3000 Euros. Garcia Diez completed his PhD in 2017 at PTB and TU Berlin and is now active as a post-doctoral researcher at HZB.
The use of nanoparticles in medicine is continuously growing, for example as platforms for drug-delivery or encapsulating imaging agents. In order to tailor nanoparticles for these applications, the functional properties of these particles need to be well understood.
In his thesis on "Characterization of Nanoparticles by Continuous Contrast Variation with Small-Angle X-ray Scattering" Raul Garcia Diez developed a method to study nanoparticles in a realistic environment with X-ray small-angle scattering in order to gain valuable information. The work was carried out with the HZB SAXS instrument, which is operated at the FCM beamline of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) in BESSY II under the cooperation between PTB and HZB.
With his work at PTB with Prof. Matthias Richter, he obtained his PhD title in May 2017 at the TU Berlin. Since then, Garcia Diez is a postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Marcus Bär at the HZB.
- Protein crystallography at BESSY II: faster, better and more and more automaticMany diseases are linked to malfunctions of proteins in the organism. The three-dimensional architecture of these molecules is often highly complex, but it can provide valuable insights into biological processes and the development of drugs. X-ray diffraction at the MX beamlines of BESSY II can be used to decipher the 3D structure of proteins. To date, more than 5000 structures have been solved at the three MX beamlines. Here, we present a review and an outlook with Manfred Weiss, head of the research group for macromolecular crystallography.
- Humboldt-Fellow at HZB-Institute for Solar Fuels: Alexander R. UhlAlexander R. Uhl, UBC Okanagan School of Engineering in Kelowna, Canada, aims to develop with Roel van de Krol from the HZB Institute for Solar Fuels an efficient and inexpensive photoelectrolyser for producing hydrogen using sunlight. His stay is being funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
- What Zinc concentration in teeth revealsTeeth are composites of mineral and protein, with a bulk of bony dentin that is highly porous. This structure is allows teeth to be both strong and sensitive. Besides calcium and phosphate, teeth contain trace elements such as zinc. Using complementary microscopy imaging techniques, a team from Charité Berlin, TU Berlin and HZB has quantified the distribution of natural zinc along and across teeth in 3 dimensions. The team found that, as porosity in dentine increases towards the pulp, zinc concentration increases 5~10 fold. These results help to understand the influence of widely-used zinc-containing biomaterials (e.g. filling) and could inspire improvements in dental medicine.