Martina Havenith-Newen is Coordinator of the Cluster of Excellence RESOLV.
ERC Grant Havenith Laser (EN)
RUB, Marquard
ERC Advanced Grant 2016
Biological Reactions in Real Time
Fundamental biological processes take place in aqueous solutions. The role of the solvent has long been neglected. Martina Havenith devotes herself to them in her project THZCALORIMETRY.
Enzymatic reactions are fundamental biological processes that occur in aqueous solutions. Both reaction partners, the enzyme and the substrate, interact with each other. Calorimetry is a method of determining very precisely the amount of heat that occurs in these biological processes under equilibrium conditions before or after the reaction. For the overall balance that decides whether this process is energetically favourable, both the enzyme-substrate interaction and the interaction of both reaction partners with the solvent must be observed.
Terahertz (THz) calorimetry, which is being developed in the project, is a new method that allows these individual contributions to be determined using laser spectroscopic fingerprints in the THz range. This enables not only a better understanding, but also makes it possible for the first time to investigate calorimetric factors with millionfold better temporal resolution in real time.
The ERC Advanced Grant "Time Resolved THz Calorimetry explores Molecular Recognition Processes" of Professor Martina Havenith-Newen is endowed with 2.5 million euros. The project starts in 2016.
ERC Grant Projects