ISBM - Helmholtz Munich

ISBM develops and deploys next-generation biotechniques for molecular sensing and actuation of distributed cellular processes to reverse engineer cell-circuit function and guide future cell therapies.

The research of ISBM focuses on three synergistic areas:

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ISBM, November 14, 2022

We introduce a new gene reporter system (INSPECT) that encode reporter or effector proteins from intronic information.

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New Research Findings, ISBM, November 14, 2022

New biological tool for tracking cellular processes

ISBM, April 30, 2022

This work describes the cell-free production, transient protein-modification, and time-resolved proteomics analysis of bacteriophages targeted against clinically relevant bacteria.

ISBM, June 04, 2021

We have generated a suite of gene reporters, EXSISERS, that self-excise themselves out of the native amino-acid chain of a protein of interest to report on the translation of specific protein isoforms from alternatively spliced mRNA.

Cover Art: The Cut and Restore Protein Trick: Self-Excising Designer Proteins Report Isoform Expression

New Research Findings, IDG, ISBM, June 04, 2021

Our proteome is much bigger than our genome because one gene produces several variants of proteins called protein isoforms, whose disbalance is implicated in many diseases. A new bioengineered reporter system developed at Helmholtz Zentrum München…

What happens in encapsulins stays in encapsulins - bioorthogonal compartments in mammalian cells

ISBM, May 22, 2018

To sequester multi-component enzymatic processes inside living mammalian cells, we introduce heterologously expressed encapsulins as a versatile platform to generate self-assembling ompartments which can serve as nano-reaction chambers.

ISBM, November 30, 2017

We have synthesized a calcium sensor for photoacoustics, which changes its absorbance and thus photoacoustic spectrum upon selective binding to Ca2+ for future use in organoids or in vivo models.

ISBM, January 27, 2015

To increase the multiplexing capabilities of gene reporters for multispectral optoacoustic tomography (MSOT), we have introduced the concept of discriminating optoacoustic contrast agents not by color but by time-varying photocontrolled signal…

Niklas Armbrust

Ph.D. student

Prof. Dr. Gil Gregor Westmeyer

Director

Anja Ammer

Laboratory manager

Stefanie Winkler

Technical Assistant

Alberto Piovesan

Ph.D. student

Oleksandr Berezin

Ph.D. student

Dr. Felix Sigmund

Group Leader

MD Silviu-Vasile Bodea

Ph.D. student

Dr. Dong-Jiunn Jeffery Truong

Group Leader

Julian Geilenkeuser

Ph.D. student

Tobias Santl

Trainee

Karin Ganea

secretary's office

Martin Grosshauser

Ph.D. student

See all

2022 Nature Cell Biology Allery, DOI: 10.11111/12312312 (2022)

Truong, D.-J.J.*, Armbrust, N.*, Geilenkeuser, J., Lederer, E-M., Santl, T., Beyer, M. Ittermann, S., Steinmaßl, E., Dyka, M., Raffl, Phlairaharn, T., Greisle, T., Zivanic, M., Grosch, M., Drukker, M.,, Westmeyer G.G., *equal contribution

Intron-encoded cistronic transcripts for minimally-invasive monitoring of coding and non-coding RNAs ion

2021 Nature Cell Biology

Truong, D.-J.J., Phlairaharn, T., Eßwein, B., Gruber, C., Tümen, D., Baligács, E., Armbrust, N., Vaccaro, F.L., Lederer, E.-M., Beck, E.M., Geilenkeuser, J., Göppert, S., Krumwiede, L., Grätz, C., Raffl, G., Schwarz, D., Zirngibl, M., Živanić, M., Beyer, M., Körner, J.D., Santl, T., Evsyukov, V., Strauß, T., Schwarz, S.C., Höglinger, G.U., Heutink, P., Doll, S., Conrad, M., Giesert, F., Wurst, W., Westmeyer, G.G.

Non-invasive and high-throughput interrogation of exon-specific isoform expression

2021 Nature Materials

Farhadi, A., Sigmund, F., Westmeyer, G.G., Shapiro, M.G.

Genetically encodable materials for non-invasive biological imaging.

2019 ACS Nano

Sigmund, F*., Pettinger, S.*, Kube, M.*, Schneider, F., Schifferer, M., Schneider, S., Efremova, M., Pujol-Martí, J., Aichler, M., Walch, A., Misgeld, T., Dietz, H., Westmeyer, G.G.

Iron-sequestering nanocompartments as multiplexed Electron Microscopy gene reporters.

2018 Nature Communications

Sigmund, F., Massner, C., Erdmann, P., Stelzl, A., Rolbieski, H., Desai, M., Bricault, S., Wörner, T.P., Snijder, J., Geerlof, A., Fuchs, H., Hrabe de Angelis, M., Heck, A.J.R., Jasanoff, A., Ntziachristos, V., Plitzko, J., Westmeyer, G.G.

Bacterial encapsulins as orthogonal compartments for mammalian cell engineering.

2017 Nature Methods

Symvoulidis, P., Lauri, A., Stefanoiu, A., Cappetta, M., Schneider, S., Jia, H., Stelzl, A., Koch, M., Perez, C.C., Myklatun, A., Renninger, S., Chmyrov, A., Lasser, T., Wurst, W., Ntziachristos, V., Westmeyer, G.G.

NeuBtracker-imaging neurobehavioral dynamics in freely behaving fish.

2018 JACS

Roberts, S., Seeger, M., Jiang, Y., Mishra, A., Sigmund, F., Stelzl, A., Lauri, A., Symvoulidis, P., Rolbieski, H., Preller, M., Deán-Ben, X.L., Razansky, D., Orschmann, T., Desbordes, S.C., Vetschera, P., Bach, T., Ntziachristos, V., Westmeyer, G.G.

Calcium Sensor for Photoacoustic Imaging.

Latest Publications

Intron-encoded cistronic transcripts for minimally invasive monitoring of coding and non-coding RNAs.

2022 Scientific Article in Cell Chemical Biology

Emslander, Q. ; Vogele, K. ; Braun, P. ; Stender, J. ; Willy, C. ; Joppich, M. ; Hammerl, J.A. ; Abele, M. ; Meng, C. ; Pichlmair, A. ; Ludwig, C. ; Bugert, J.J. ; Simmel, F.C. ; Westmeyer, G.G.

Cell-free production of personalized therapeutic phages targeting multidrug-resistant bacteria.

2022 Scientific Article in Nanomaterials

Gabashvili, A.N. ; Efremova, M.V. ; Vodopyanov, S.S. ; Chmelyuk, N.S. ; Oda, V.V. ; Sarkisova, V.A. ; Leonova, M.K. ; Semkina, A.S. ; Ivanova, A.V. ; Abakumov, M.A.

New approach to non-invasive tumor model monitoring via self-assemble iron containing protein nanocompartments.

2021 Scientific Article in International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Gabashvili, A.N. ; Vodopyanov, S.S. ; Chmelyuk, N.S. ; Sarkisova, V.A. ; Fedotov, K.A. ; Efremova, M.V. ; Abakumov, M.A.

Encapsulin based self‐assembling iron‐containing protein nanoparticles for stem cells mri visualization.

2021 Scientific Article in Nature Cell Biology

Truong, D.J.J. ; Phlairaharn, T. ; Eßwein, B. ; Gruber, C. ; Tümen, D. ; Baligács, E. ; Armbrust, N. ; Vaccaro, F.L. ; Lederer, E.-M. ; Beck, E.M. ; Geilenkeuser, J. ; Göppert, S. ; Krumwiede, L. ; Grätz, C. ; Raffl, G. ; Schwarz, D. ; Zirngibl, M. ; Živanić, M. ; Beyer, M. ; Körner, J.D. ; Santl, T. ; Evsyukov, V. ; Strauß, T. ; Schwarz, S.C. ; Höglinger, G.U. ; Heutink, P. ; Doll, S. ; Conrad, M. ; Giesert, F. ; Wurst, W. ; Westmeyer, G.G.

Bioengineering Center Institute for Synthetic Biomedicine

The research of ISBM focuses on three synergistic areas:

Biomolecular Engineering of Sensors and Actuators

Genetic and Cellular Engineering of Model Systems

Multiscale Interrogation of Cell-circuit Function

Non-invasive monitoring of non-coding RNA | how to encode proteins from intronic information?

Molecular monitoring of RNA regulation

Biosynthetic antibiotics | Clean and safe production of bacteriophages to battle antibiotic-resistant bacteria

Proteins come in many flavors | high-throughput tracking of specific protein isoforms

The Cut and Restore Protein Trick: Self-Excising Designer Proteins Report Isoform Expression

What happens in encapsulins stays in encapsulins | bioorthogonal compartments in mammalian cells

Calcium Sensor for Photoacoustics (CaSPA)

Temporally unmixed MSOT (tuMSOT)

Scientists at ISBM

Niklas Armbrust

Prof. Dr. Gil Gregor Westmeyer

Anja Ammer

Stefanie Winkler

Alberto Piovesan

Oleksandr Berezin

Dr. Felix Sigmund

MD Silviu-Vasile Bodea

Dr. Dong-Jiunn Jeffery Truong

Julian Geilenkeuser

Tobias Santl

Karin Ganea

Martin Grosshauser

Selected Publications

Latest Publications

Intron-encoded cistronic transcripts for minimally invasive monitoring of coding and non-coding RNAs.

Cell-free production of personalized therapeutic phages targeting multidrug-resistant bacteria.

New approach to non-invasive tumor model monitoring via self-assemble iron containing protein nanocompartments.

Encapsulin based self‐assembling iron‐containing protein nanoparticles for stem cells mri visualization.

Non-invasive and high-throughput interrogation of exon-specific isoform expression.

Director Contact

Karin Ganea

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