Georg Büldt (born March 21, 1943 in Rheine) is a German experimental biophysicist, professor emeritus at the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and former director of the Institute for Complex Systems (ICS) at the Forschungszentrum Jülich.
Career
editBüldt obtained his diploma in 1969 after completing his physics studies at the Technische Universität Berlin and received his doctorate three years later from the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in the field of physical chemistry. After his habilitation (1978) in biophysics at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel, he returned to Berlin and headed a working group at the Free University of Berlin as a C2 professor from 1982 to 1992. He then took up a C4 professorship for physical biology at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, which he held until 2008. Also in 1993, he became director of the Institute for Complex Systems (ICS-5: Molecular Biophysics) at the Jülich Research Center and headed it until 2011. From 2004 to 2010 he was also spokesperson for the Virtual Institute for Structural Biology (VIBS), which is funded by the Helmholtz Association. In 2011 he became director of the Laboratory of Advanced Studies of Membrane Proteins at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology for four years.
Research
editAs part of his scientific work, Büldt focused on researching protein structures, which serve as an important basis for explaining their function. He played a key role in developing neutron diffraction for use in biological systems.[1] Later, he worked on microbial rhodopsins and contributed to a publication in which the proton pump bacteriorhodopsin was incorporated into the inner mitochondrial membrane and was able to generate a proton gradient there using light in addition to the respiratory chain.[2] Finally, he also worked on the process of protein folding. Here, his work showed that the tiny forces that arise during the folding of the nascent polypeptide chain on the ribosome can be measured using optical tweezers.[3]
Further Commitments
editIn addition to his research, Büldt also held the following positions:
- 2005 – 2011: Member of the Advisory Board of the Grenoble Partnership for Structural Biology (PSB), France
- 2005 – 2008: Member of the Advisory Board of Max Planck Groups at DESY in Hamburg
- 2003 – 2008: Member of the Strategierat of the Research Reactor FRM II of the Technical University of Munich
- 2003 – 2014: Member of the Advisory Board of the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics
- 1998 – 2001: Member of the Advisory Board for Science and Technology of the GKSS-Forschungszentrums Geesthacht
- 1996 – 2004: Elected Referee for Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry of the German Research Foundataion
References
edit- ^ G. Büldt, H.U. Gally, A. Seelig, J. Seelig and G. Zaccai (January 1978). "Neutron diffraction studies on selectively deuterated phospholipid bilayers". Nature. 271: 182–184. doi.org/10.1038/271182a0
- ^ A. Hoffmann, V. Hildebrandt, J. Heberle and G. Büldt (September 1994). "Photoactive mitochondria: In vivo transfer of a light-driven proton pump into the inner mitochondrial membrane of Schizosaccharomyces pombe" Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 91 (20): 9367-9371. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.91.20.9367
- ^ F. Wruck, A. Katranidis, K.H. Nierhaus, G. Büldt and M. Hegner (May 2017). "Translation and folding of single proteins in real time". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 114 (22): E4399-E4407, doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1617873114