Outstanding master thesis on the structure and function of a bacterial enzyme honoured
Lena Graß has received an award by GBM for her master thesis. © FU Berlin
On December 17, 2018, Lena Graß, a PhD student from the Structural Biochemistry Group at Freie Universität Berlin, was awarded the Master Prize of the Gesellschaft für Biochemie und Molekularbiologie e.V. (Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) (GBM). For her master thesis at Freie Universität Berlin and the MX beamlines of BESSY II, she deciphered the structure and function of a so-called RNA helicase.
These bacterial enzymes can alter the activities of RNA molecules and influence the life cycle of bacteria. As part of her master's thesis, Lena Graß investigated a RNA helicase from the intestinal bacterium Escherichia coli. A closely related enzyme from the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of borreliosis, is essential for the infectivity of these bacteria. A better understanding of this enzyme could help to develop new drugs to block the enzyme.
Graß produced the enzyme using genetic engineering methods. Using macromolecular X-ray crystallography on the MX beam tubes of the Joint Berlin MX Laboratory at BESSY II, Graß was able to elucidate how the enzyme is constructed and folded in detail.
Graß began her master's degree in biochemistry at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen in 2015 and completed her master's thesis in the structural biochemistry group of the Freie Universität Berlin in cooperation with the macromolecular crystallography group at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin. At the beginning of 2018, she completed her master's degree with the highest grade. She is currently doing her doctorate in the structural biochemistry group at Freie Universität.
- Israel Ibukun Olaniyan receives the Helmholtz Doctoral Award 2026At Helmholtz, more than 8,000 doctoral candidates conduct research. Eleven of them have now been honored for their original and outstanding work, among them Dr Israel Ibukun Olaniyan from the HZB. His doctoral thesis "Ferroelectricity at the nanoscale in epitaxial BaTiO3 on silicon" in the group of Professor Catherine Dubourdieu represents a step towards a new nanoelectronics based on topological defects, that can potentially help to create an energy efficient information technology.
- Only at BESSY II worldwide: IR nanoscopy at very long THz wavelengthsThe team at the IRIS beamline at BESSY II has created a new experimental option: They achieved infrared nanoscopy with a spatial resolution of around 50 nm at very long THz wavelengths. This was possible thanks to a temporal pattern of light pulses known as the low-alpha operating mode at BESSY II. Worldwide, BESSY II is the only synchrotron light source at which users could perform nanoscopy in a single setup from 25 to 4000 cm-1, a unique opportunity for ultra-broadband characterisation of complex materials at the nanoscale in both the life sciences and materials sciences.
- Ultrafast demagnetisation - Thinner iron, stronger effectThe thinner an iron film, the more easily it can be demagnetised by a laser pulse. Researchers at the University of Duisburg-Essen, working with Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin and other partners, have discovered why: the key lies in the magnetic order at the material's interfaces. In the long term, these findings could contribute to the development of new technologies for magnetic data storage. The results have been published in the scientific journal Advanced Science.