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Engineering of photocontrol in enzymes

Our global goal is the design of artificial enzymes with an integrated photoswitch through which enzyme activity can be spatio-temporally controlled by light. It is our vision that these photoswitchable enzymes, named photoxenases, contribute to the scientific progress in diverse fundamental and application-oriented research fields. This vision motivates us to work closely together as a cohesive team.

Team

current team and alumni

Research

areas of focus

Publications

list of publications

News

18th July 2025 (external link, opens in a new window)

Interested in cell imaging with spatiotemporal control? Then check out our article by Sabrina Mandl, Barbara Maiwald and Elena Adlmanninger in close collaboration with the group of Johannes Broichhagen (FMP Berlin)!

15th July 2025 (external link, opens in a new window)

In our second manuscript of this year, we report an alternative mechanism of enzymatic photocontrol by the photoswitch azobenzene, again published in ACS Catalysis. Fjoralba Zeqiri, Caroline Hiefinger, Sabrina Mandl and Enrico Hupfeld were involved from our group.

6th June 2025

Andrea Hupfeld finished her habilitation giving her the title Dr. habil. On this occassion we started our new enlightenment tradition, which honors graduates of a doctorate or higher.

9th May 2025

Mona Wieland and Andrea Hupfeld had the pleasure to share our progress on engenieering of photoxenases in Milan at NextGenBiocat 2025 with a poster and an invited talk.

7th May 2025 (external link, opens in a new window)

Our first manuscript this year on the reversible photocontrol of a chemotherapeutic enzyme has been accepted for publication by ACS Catalysis. Great work by our students Mona Wieland, Barbara Germscheid and Johanna Rein!

2nd May 2025

A warm welcome to our new Master student Verena Pape, who already substantially assisted our work during her studies.

21st January 2025

Andrea Hupfeld, Sabrina Mandl and Caroline Hiefinger participated in the exciting and interactive conference Advances in Chemical Biology 2025, organized by DECHEMA. Congratulations to Caroline Hiefinger for winning a poster prize!

1st December 2024

We welcome our new PostDoc Enrico Hupfeld!

29th September 2024

German Conference on Synthetic Biology 2024
We attended with two poster presentations by Sabrina Mandl and Caroline Hiefinger and a talk by Andrea Hupfeld.

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