From small Beginnings to steep Ascent The Fraunhofer Society

The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (FhG) was founded by the Secretary of the Baverian Ministry of Economics, Hugo Geiger. He intended to create a research organisation that should unite science and economics to foster applied research. The new institution was named after Joseph von Fraunhofer, a hint to its intended orientation as Fraunhofer was both an ingenious scientist and a successful businessman. His inventions were developed into products which were sold all over the word. The FhG as new organisation would become the third pillar of German Research next to the Max-Planck-Society (MPG) and the German Research Foundation (DFG), but initially, the MPG and the DFG caused some problems for the newly founded FhG. However, when the German Ministry for Research guaranteed funding, the FhG quickly rose to international recognition

Super-resolved Fluorescence Microscopy: Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014 for Eric Betzig, Stefan Hell, and William E. Moerner

A big honor for small objects: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014 was jointly awarded to Eric Betzig, Stefan Hell, and William E. Moerner “for the development of super‐resolved fluorescence microscopy”. This Highlight describes how the field of super‐resolution microscopy developed from the first detection of a single molecule in 1989 to the sophisticated techniques of today

Artificial Formation and Tuning of Glycoprotein Networks on Live Cell Membranes: A Single-Molecule Tracking Study

We present a method to artificially induce network formation of membrane glycoproteins and show the precise tuning of their interconnection on living cells. For this, membrane glycans are first metabolically labeled with azido sugars and then tagged with biotin by copper-free click chemistry. Finally, these biotin-tagged membrane proteins are interconnected with streptavidin (SA) to form an artificial protein network in analogy to a lectin-induced lattice. The degree of network formation can be controlled by the concentration of SA, its valency, and the concentration of biotin on membrane proteins. This was verified by investigation of the spatiotemporal dynamics of the SA-protein networks employing single-molecule tracking. It was also proven that this network formation strongly influences the biologically relevant process of endocytosis as it is known from natural lattices on the cell surface

Inside Cover: Artificial Formation and Tuning of Glycoprotein Networks on Live Cell Membranes: A Single‐Molecule Tracking Study (ChemPhysChem 6/2016)

The trajectories of membrane proteins, which are artificially interconnected by biotin and streptavidin, are reminiscent of the work of action painters. This provided the inspiration to think of the different membrane biotin concentrations as colors that can be used to paint various networks onto cells by using the streptavidin brush. More information can be found in the Full Paper by C. Bräuchle et al. on page 829 in Issue 6, 2016 (DOI: 10.1002/cphc.201500809

Von Kautschuk zu Metallen: ein Werkslabor mit Weltgeltung

Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts leitete zunächst der Chemiker Salomon Axelrod das chemische Laboratorium im Kabelwerk Oberspree. Sein Hauptforschungsgebiet war Kautschuk. Nach seinem Tod übernahm der Ingenieur Wichard von Moellendorff die Leitung des Labors, und Forschungsschwerpunkt wurden Metalle. Der Name eines seiner Laboranten steht noch heute in Chemiebüchern: Jan Czochralski

En route from artificial to natural: Evaluation of inhibitors of mannose-specific adhesion of E. coli under flow

We investigated the properties of six Escherichia coli adhesion inhibitors under static and under flow conditions. On mannan-covered model substrates and under static conditions, all inhibitors were able to almost completely abolish lectin-mediated E. coli adhesion. On a monolayer of living human microvascular endothelial cells (HMEC-1), the inhibitors reduced adhesion under static conditions as well, but a large fraction of bacteria still managed to adhere even at highest inhibitor concentrations. In contrast, under flow conditions E. coli did not exhibit any adhesion to HMEC-1 not even at inhibitor concentrations where significant adhesion was detected under static conditions. This indicates that the presence of shear stress strongly affects inhibitor properties and must be taken into account when evaluating the potency of bacterial adhesion inhibitors. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Inside Cover: Microdomain Formation Controls Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Cell‐Surface Glycoproteins (ChemBioChem 14/2015)

The inside cover picture shows a metaphoric representation of the key idea of our paper. We tagged membrane glycoproteins by metabolic labeling, interconnected them in a physiological or artificial way, and employed high-resolution fluorescence microscopy to investigate the effects of this network formation on the spatiotemporal dynamics of the interconnected membrane glycoproteins. More details can be found in the Full Paper by T. K. Lindhorst, C. Bräuchle et al. on page 2023 in Issue 14, 2015. (DOI: 10.1002/cbic.201500361)