Welcome! This is the website of Henrike Niederholtmeyer’s lab. Our group works on cell-free synthetic biology and on engineering artificial compartments. We are located at the Technical University of Munich, more precisely at the TUM Campus Straubing for Biotechnology and Sustainability. We currently have open postdoc and student internship positions.
Research area
Biological systems are highly organized in space and time. Research in the lab is motivated by the remarkable precision with which cells time and organize reactions in their interior and interactions with other cells. What are characteristics and effects of the molecular interactions that drive organization in time and in space? How much organization is necessary to integrate multiple complex biochemical functions? Can we learn from biology to design new life-like materials and micro-machines? To answer these questions we build and study biochemically simplified systems. We take a creative approach to engineering biology-inspired reaction systems using a combination of biological and synthetic components. We use and develop microfluidic tools, hybrid materials, and cell-free reaction systems such as cell-free transcription and translation or purified proteins.
We gratefully acknowledge support by the DFG Emmy Noether Program and the European Research Council.