Team members

QM
LH
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LS

Muscle dynamics

We are investigating the mechanobiology of muscle. We are interested in how functional muscles are made during development and how they remain functional through the lifespan of an animal.

The strength of our group lies in its unique combination of systematic genetics and live in vivo cell biology, with mechano- and structural biology. We are using Drosophila in vivo and human iPSC in vitro models to study the mechanisms how muscle assemble their contractile sarcomeres and how these sarcomeres are serviced in the living animal to remain functional throughout life. Sarcomeres are amongst the largest protein assemblies in animals: they produce high forces and mechanically link to the skeleton to power animal movement. Hence, sarcomeres are a fantastic playground to understand basic principles of biology:
How do thousands of large proteins assemble to build a micro-meter large pseudo-crystalline sarcomere?
How do thousands of sarcomeres self-assemble to chains that mechanically connect across centi-meter long muscle fibers?

How are sarcomere development and maintenance coordinated with the other physiological requirements of muscle cells including mitochondria biogenesis, T-tubule formation and proteasomal turn-over of damaged proteins throughout life?
Answering these questions will enable us to better understand how muscle are effectively built during development, how they adapt to their different physiological needs (see heart vs. skeletal muscles) and how they remain functional for our entire life. 

Section of an adult Drosophila shows body muscles in yellow and blue, and the large flight muscles of the thorax in red. Note that each flight muscle cells spans across the entire thorax.

Publications

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of the team

Lab members

They drive our research

Alumni

They contributed to our research
Maria Spletter
Assistant Professor at University of Missouri Kansas City, USA
Xu Zhang
Assistant Professor at University of Foshan University, China
Irene Kalchhauser
Full Professor at University of Bern, Switzerland
Sandra Lemke
PostDoc at the Nelson Lab in Princeton University, USA
Aynur Kaya-Copur
Scientific Grants Advisor at DKFZ Heidelberg, Germany
Cornelia Schönbauer
German Center for Diabetes Research, Munich, Germany
Manuela Weitkunat
AstraZeneca, Munich, Germany
Irene Ferreira
Director of Clinical Support, Sirion Biotech, Munich, Germany
Wouter Koolhaas
Helmholtz International Epigenetics Research School, Munich, Germany
Celine Guichard
Immunotech, BeckmannCoulter, Marseille

Funding bodies

They support our research

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