>> Fun: Congratulations! At the Institute of Physics we spent an exciting and exhaustive day and finally made it: Team Biophysics won the Soccer Cup of the Institute of Physics 2024! 

 

 

>> Research: Congratulations, Kathi`s paper "Pulsed surface acoustic waves accelerate wound healing and reveal new parameter limits for cell stimulation in vitro" will appear soon in Journal of Physics D! Kathrin and Paul here addressed the question how the amplitude limit for beneficial cell stimulation can be increased by using pulsed signals. Moreover, Michelle and Kathi developed a full automated analysis tool for wound healing assays.

 

 

Key findings:

• the stimulation efficacy observed in previous studies with continuous irradiation is preserved for pulsed stimuli

• a wider range of applicable SAW intensities up to P_in = 21 dBm  (maximum stimulation efficacy of E = 201 %) was found

• below a distinct pulse duration limit τ = 100 ms, no direct stimulation effect was observed

• the SegFormer-based deep learning algorithm Neural Cell Edge Detector (NeuCED) for the cell edge segmentation and image binarization is presented

 

 

>> Research: Congratulations, our recent Malaria paper "Survival of P. falciparum infected Red Blood Cell Aggregates in Elongational Shear Flow" was accepted by Lab on a Chip! Special thanks to Anna and the whole interdisciplinary team in Edinburgh, Stockholm and Augsburg, for pushing this forward.

 

Key findings:

• Rosette "survival" decreases with longer exposure to elongational flow.
• ...increases with rosette size.
• ...is 5%-15% higher in blood group A compared to blood group 0.

 

>> Research: Congratulations, Kathi won one of the poster awards at the 14^th EBSA congress 2023, Stockholm, Sweden  for the presentation of her poster Identifying the intracellular response in surface acoustic wave-stimulated wound healing! Great, job!

 

 

>> Research: Congratulations, Simon and Nico! Our contribution "Cell Membrane State, Permeability, and Elasticity Assessment for Single Cells and Cell Ensembles" to the book cell viability assays was recently published. 

 

>> Outreach: Our interdisciplinary team of six research groups at the Institute for Theoretical Medicine and the Institute of Physics will offer  a 4-day lab course for  15 motivated pupils from all over Bavaria to learn about the application of fluorescence spanning from LED to retinal tissue! Details will follow soon.

 

>> Research: Congratulations Michelle and Manu²! Our interdisciplinary paper "NeuroCellCentreDB: Exploring a Novel Dataset for Neuron-like Cell Centre Detection with Deep Neural Networks" with the Schuller Group has been accepted for presentation at the 45th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC'23) in Sydney Australia!

 

 

>> Research: Congratulations Simon and Nico! Our method chapter "Cell membrane state, permeability and elasticity assessment for single cells and cell ensembles" as part of the book "Methods in Molecular Biology - Cell Viability Assays" will appear soon!

 

>> Research: Congratulations Nico, Julian and Jonas! Our paper "Transport across cell membranes is modulated by lipid order" has been accepted and will appeared soon in Advanced Biology!

 

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/adbi.202200282

 

Key findings:

• The local environment modulates cell membrane phase state
• High cell density increases cell membrane lipid order
• Cell membrane lipid order correlates with membrane transport
• Cells adapt membrane transport by phase state adaptation
• Membrane transport is reduced during in vitro wound closure

>> Research: Congratulations Kathi! Our review paper "Recent Advances of Surface Acoustic Waves-based Sensors for Non-Invasive Cell Analysis" has been accepted and will appear soon in Current Opinion in Biotechnology!

 

You can download the paper here: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1gO%7EC3PtAV1NxI

 

 

>> Outreach: Together with the didactics of physics team we spent one day in the lab with 20 motivated pupils from all over Bavaria. After learning the basics of fluorescence the pupils applied fluorescence microscopy and spectroscopy to characterize cells and biological and synthetic membranes! Hope to see you again as the next generation students! 

 

>> Transfer: Our idea got the audience award at the  Night of Ideas on October 27^th 2022!

 

>> Research: Congratulations! Nico got a poster prize by the DGfB for our contribution “Lipid phase transitions in cell and synthetic membranes” at the conference in Konstanz.

 

 

>> Research: Together with Nico, Joshi, Sandhya and Bernhard we applied for EXIST Transfer of Research - Let`s keep our fingers crossed!

 

>> Funding: Great News - we got the grants for our new confocal and live cell imaging microscopes of the DFG! Billions of cells can`t wait getting into the spot light... 

 

>> Outreach: On June 28^th at 6 pm we present our research topics at the "Lehrstuhlabend" to all interested students with talks and lab tours, starting in the physics lecture hall. We are looking forward to meeting you!

 

 

>> Research: Congratulations Nico, Jonas and Andrej! Our paper "Shear stress induced lipid order and permeability changes of giant unilamellar vesicles" has been accepted and will appear soon in BBA General Subjects!

 

 

Key findings:

• Membrane permeability increase by transition from gel to fluid phase and vice versa
• All-or-nothing GUV permeabilization under shear flow near the phase transition
• Gradual GUV permeabilization under shear flow far off the phase transition
• Phase state dependent membrane permeability increase induced by shear forces
• Lipid membrane melting temperature shift induced by shear forces

 

 

 

>> Research: Congratulations Kathrin, Sebastian, Sophie and Manuel! Our paper "One-dimensional acoustic potential landscapes guide the neurite outgrowth and affect the viability of B35 neuroblastoma cells" appeared as accepted manuscript in Physical Biology

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1478-3975/ac70a1 ! 

 

Key findings:

• applicable SSAW power levels can be increased by employing pulsed rf signals
• B35 neurite orientation is influenced by acoustic potential landscapes
• proliferation in microchannels is decreased compared to standard culture
• with increasing acoustic force the proliferation is further decreased (≈180 nN per cell => relative proliferation rate ≈ 50%)
• mild acoustic forces up to ≈ 100 nN do not reduce or slightly improve viability, while higher forces reduce the viability (measured as relative time to apoptosis )

 

 

>> Research: Our contribution „Handy Nanoquakes“ on the facile manipulation of micrometre-sized objects and living cells appeared today in Nature Materials https://www.nature.com/articles/s41563-022-01236-y.

 

>> Research: Congratulations! Our paper  “Directed invasion of cancer cell spheroids inside 3D collagen matrices oriented by microfluidic flow in experiment and simulation" in collaboration with the Engelke group (Graz) has been accepted and will appear soon in PLOS ONE.

 

>> Research: Congratulations! Lukas’ paper  “Reversible single cell trapping of Paramecium caudatum to correlate swimming behavior and membrane state" in collaboration with the Schneider group (TU Dortmund) has been accepted and will appear soon in Biomicrofluidics.

 

 

>> Research: Congratulations! Lukas’ and Kathi’s paper  “Acetylcholinesterase Activity Influenced by Lipid Membrane Area and Surface Acoustic Waves" appeared in the Special Issue „Lipid Bilayers on Chip, Volume II“ in Micromachines.

 

 

https://www.mdpi.com/2072-666X/13/2/287

 

Key points:

 

• the patterning of supported lipid membranes with SAW is semi-reversible with two diffusion time scales
• the modulation of the activity of Acetylcholinesterase bound to Lipid Membranes in standing SAW fields is low
• the activity of AChE is modulated by the available membrane area

 

>> Research: Congratulations! Andrej´ s paper  “The activity of the intrinsically water-soluble enzyme ADAMTS13 correlates with the membrane state when bound to a phospholipid bilayer" is accepted and will appear in Scientific Reports soon!

 

Key points:

 

• the temperature dependence of the activity of ADAMTS13 when bound to a lipid bilayer shows a distinct maximum close to the main phase transition temperature T_m of the membrane
• changing the carbon chain length of the used lipid, and thus T_m, shifts the activity maximum to the new T_m
• comparing the activity at a constant temperature for three different membranes in the gel phase, the fluid phase and at the transition underline the role of the membrane state for the enzyme activity
• these results are perfectly in line with the concept that increased fluctuations close to a phase transition are crucial for catalysis

 

>> Teaching: New elective starting next summer term: „Physiology in everyday life“ -     your idea/research question, your implementation, your answer!     

 

 

>> Award: We got the CeNS publication award 2021 in the category „Best Junior Scientist Publication“  for our paper  Vibration enhanced cell growth induced by surface acoustic waves as in vitro wound healing model, PNAS!

 

>> Research: Congratulations! Anna´´ s and Simon´ s paper  “Dynamic Effective Elasticity of Melanoma Cells under Shear and Elongational Flow Confirms Estimation from Force Spectroscopy” is accepted and will appeared in Biophysica.

 

article: https://www.mdpi.com/2673-4125/1/4/32/htm.

 

Key points:

 

• The elasticity of A375 melanoma cells was determined by applying different methods: AFM + a cantilever with a pyramidal tip, AFM + tipless cantilevers and deformation analysis during passing a stenosis in a micro channe.l
• We found higher and more widely distributed Young´´ s moduli E using a cantilever with a tip compared with the other methods due to local variations of E.
• E scales with the logarithm of the loading rate.
• The effective, overall elasticity indicates two population of the studied cell line.

 

>> Research: Congratulations!Nico´´ s paper  “Broad lipid phase transitions in mammalian cell membranes measured by Laurdan fluorescence spectroscopy” is accepted and will appear soon in BBA Biomembranes.

 

preprint: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-515297/v1

 

article (proofreading pending): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S000527362100242X

 

Key points:

• Membrane embedded Laurdan displays order disorder phase transitions even in frozen water
• Cell membranes undergo order-disorder phase transitions as lipid vesicles but over a broader temperature range
• As known for lipid vesicles order-disorder phase transitions in cell membranes are sensitive to cholesterol content, anaesthetic and pH
• Order-disorder phase transitions in cell membranes are influenced by cell adaption processes, morphological changes and protein content

 

>> Research: Congratulations! Andrej´´`s and Felix´´ s paper  “Transient permeabilization of living cells combining shear flow and acoustic trapping for facilitated uptake of molecules” is accepted and will appeared soon in the Special Issue Developing Biophysical Tools in Processes.

 

https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9717/9/6/913/htm

 

Key points:

• Molecular uptake under shear force @RT is a non-linear function of shear stress with a pronounced maximum, that could be related with a phase transition of the plasma membrane.
• Acoustic trapping under flow increases the uptake up to a factor of 18.
• This permeabilization method works for impermeable dyes, sugars and proteins.

 

>> Research: Congratulations! Sixuan´´`s paper  “Surface acoustic wave enhanced water splitting reaction with methanol as sacrifice material” is accepted and will appeared soon in Catalysis Science and Technology of the RSC.

 

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2021/cy/d0cy01788d/unauth#!divAbstract

 

Key points:

• SAW (Rayleigh waves) enhance water splitting using a Pt/TiO2 catalyst by more than +100%
• The SAW accompanying electric field is crucial

 

>> Research: Our paper  “Shear-Horizontal Surface Acoustic Wave Sensor for Non-Invasive Monitoring of Dynamic Cell Spreading and Attachment in Wound Healing Assays” is accepted and will appear soon in Biosensors and Bioelectronics (Vol 173 (2021) 112807).

 

Download for free till Januar 8^th 2021:  https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1c62U3PVtpkTxg

 

Key points:

• Love waves allow for non-optical sensing of wound-healing-assays
• Changes in cell adhesion strength influence the effective permittivity
• Monitoring of culture conditions, like changes in osmolarity, is easily possible
• Cell detachment kinetics can be measured quantitatively without microscopy

 

>> Research: Congratulations to our team, especially Manu, Kathi and Sophie! Our paper  “Vibration enhanced cell growth induced by surface acoustic waves as in vitro wound healing model” will appear soon  appeared in PNAS.

 

https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/11/25/2005203117

 

Key points:

• SAW enhanced proliferation
• SAW enhanced migration up to +135%
• wave type is crucial (vertical substrate deflection)
• effect conserved for various cell lines

 

>> Funding: Nicolas Färber just has been awarded with a Add-on Fellowship for Interdisciplinary Life Science 2020 of the Joachim-Herz-Stiftung! We congratulate Nico and thank the funders!

 

 

>> Research: We recently got funding for our collaboration project „Physikalische und funktionelle Mechanismen der Interaktionen an Zell- und Gefäßwänden“ (Physical and functional interaction mechanisms at cell membranes and vessel walls)

 

Collaborators:

• Dr. Stefanie Grützner (Transfusionsmedizin und Hämostaseologie)
• Dr. Torsten Gloe (Physiologie)
• Prof. Dr. Udo Jeschke (Interdisziplinäres onkologisches Forschungslabor)
• Prof. Dr. Achim Wixforth (Experimentalphysik I)
• Prof. Dr. Julia Welzel (Klinik für Dermatologie und Allergologie)

https://www.uni-augsburg.de/de/fakultaet/med/forschung/forschungsfoerderung/gefoerderte-projekte/

 

> Research: Anna´’s paper  “Blood group and size dependent stability of P. falciparum infected red blood cell aggregates in capillaries” appeared in Biomicrofluidics! 

   >> paper: download here https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.5125038

 

>> Research: The summary on our successful ITN SAWTrain can be found online now!

 https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/411685-a-novel-training-network-is-making-waves-with-tiny-quakes-on-chips

 

>> Research: Patta´´’s paper  “Fission of Lipid-Vesicles by Membrane Phase Transitions in Thermal Convection”  just got accepted and will appeared soon in Scientific Reports! 

  >> paper: download here (open access) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-55110-0.pdf

 

>> Research: Sascha´´’s, Andrej´’s and Sven´’s paper  “Smart antimicrobial efficacy employing pH-sensitive ZnO-doped DLC coatings”   just got accepted and will appeared soon in Scientific Reports! 

   >> press release: read more https://www.uni-augsburg.de/de/campusleben/neuigkeiten/2019/11/21/1048/

   >> paper: download here (open access) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-53521-7.pdf

 

Motivierte Studierende (Medizin/Physik/Mawi) gesucht für Abschlussarbeiten     JETZT !   

 

Du willst an einem unserer Projekte mitwirken in Form einer/eines

• Bachelorarbeit
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• Projektarbeit
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Dann kontaktiere uns jetzt! => christoph.westerhausen@med.uni-augsburg.de

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