Dr. Maria Hoernke

Group Leader   alternative afiliation: Department of Physical Chemistry Von-Danckelmann-Platz 4 D-06120 Halle (S) phone: +49 345 5525 807 Department of Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmacy Hermann-Herder-Strasse 9 D-79104 Freiburg i. Br. Phone: +49 761 203 6343 Fax: +49 761 203 6366 eMail: Maria Hoernke Room no.: 03 005 A

We are a young, interdisciplinary team in biophysical chemistry and connected to the department of pharmaceutics at Freiburg University and department of physical chemistry at Halle University. We collaborate with groups in Freiburg, Prague, Halle, Leipzig, Jena, Erlangen, Bayreuth, Vienna, Shanghai.

We work with lipid membranes and membrane-active peptides, polymers, or proteins. Using microcalorimetry, time-correlated fluorescence spectroscopy, monolayers, and other biophysical methods, we investigate the selectivity of antimicrobial polymers or pH-reponsive polymers designed for enhanced endosomal escape for different lipid membranes.
We measure and model membrane permeabilization, characterize the interactions of biomimetic compounds, and reach out to microbiology.
 

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NEWS

Current research

• Lipid selectivity

 
We are interested in membrane biophysical chemistry in relation to membrane-active compounds for diverse therapeutical applications or for biochemical knowlegde.

CV 

Dr. Maria Hoernke studied chemistry at the Martin-Luther-Universität in Halle (Germany) and at Universidad de Burgos (Spain). She specialized in physical chemistry and biophysics.

Her Diploma thesis focused on the interactions of peptides with lipid model membranes and was carried out in 2007/2008 in Halle(S.). For her PhD project, Maria moved to the interfaces department of Max-Planck-Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam (Germany) to study the impact of interfaces on amyloid formation of peptides. After receiving her PhD in 2012, she joined the Theory & Bio-Systems department of the same MPI to complement the project with molecular dynamics simulations as a Postdoc. In 2013, Maria joined Göteborgs Universitet (Sweden). She won a Marie Curie IEF fellowship in order to use time resolved X-ray solution scattering to study conformational changes in photoreceptor proteins. She also investigated structural changes in membrane associated proteins by infrared spectroscopy. 2015 Maria moved to Freiburg to help establishing the Heerklotz group. The Daimler and Benz foundation contributed funding and since 2019 Maria raises funding for her own team from the DFG. In 2023, the team got split to Freiburg and Halle University.

Maria was speaker of the section 'Membrane Biophysics' of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Biophysik e.V.
http://www.dgfb.org/de/ueber-dgfb/sektion-2.html

Publications

List of publications
 

Research topics 

• biophysics of lipid membrane models

• peptide-membrane interactions
• permeabilization of lipid membranes
• antimicrobial activity
• lipid selectivity
• conformational changes and orientation of mebrane-bound, surface-bound and soluble proteins or peptides
• surface-sensitive biophysical methods

Methods

• fluorescence spectroscopy (TCSPC, FRET, etc.)
• infrared spectroscopy (including infrared reflection-absorption spectroscopy)
• microcalorimetry (differential scanning calorimetry, isothermal titration calorimetry)
• monolayer methods
• X-ray solution scattering (SAXS/WAXS, time-resolved X-ray scattering)
• UV/VIS spectroscopy
• circular dichroism
• dynamic light scattering

Monolayer techniques

• infrared reflection absorption spectroscopy (IRRAS)
• grazing incidence X-ray diffraction reflectometry (X-ray and neutrons)
• total reflection X-ray fluorescence

Computational methods

• basic knowledge in MD simulations