Introducing Kerstin Blank – Inaugural Editorial Board Member of RSC Mechanochemistry

We are delighted to introduce to you Professor Kerstin Blank, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria, as one of our inaugural Editorial Board Members for RSC Mechanochemistry.

 

Learn more about Kerstin Blank

Kerstin G. Blank obtained a diploma in Biotechnology from the University of Applied Sciences in Jena in 2000. After 3 years as a project manager in Industry, she returned to Academia. She obtained a PhD in Biophysics from Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich in 2006. After two short postdoctoral stays at the Universities in Strasbourg and Leuven, she became assistant professor at Radboud University in Nijmegen in 2009. In 2014, she moved to the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam where she led the Max Planck Research Group ‘Mechano(bio)chemistry’. Since October 2021, she is full professor at Johannes Kepler University Linz where she heads the Department of Biomolecular & Selforganizing Matter. She is co-founder of the Gordon Research Conference on Multiscale Mechanochemistry & Mechanobiology. The main themes of her research are 1) mechanical structure-function relationships of protein-protein and protein-surface interactions, 2) protein-based molecular force sensors, 3) molecularly controlled mechanoresponsive hydrogels and 4) mechanosensing at cell-material interfaces.

 

Read some of her recent publications:

 

Fortified Coiled Coils: Enhancing Mechanical Stability with Lactam or Metal Staples

Patricia López-García, Aline D. de Araujo, Ana E. Bergues-Pupo, Isabell Tunn, David P. Fairlie and Kerstin G. Blank

Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2021, 60, 232-236

 

Influence of Network Topology on the Viscoelastic Properties of Dynamically Crosslinked Hydrogels

Emilia M. Grad, Isabell Tunn, Dion Voerman, Alberto S. de Léon, Roel Hammink and Kerstin G. Blank

Front. Chem., 2020, 8, 536

 

Decoding Biomineralization: Interaction of a Mad10-Derived Peptide with Magnetite Thin Films

Anna Pohl, Florian Berger, Ruby M. A. Sullan, Carmen Valverde-Tercedor, Kinga Freindl, Nika Spiridis, Christopher T. Lefèvre, Nicolas Menguy, Stefan Klumpp, Kerstin G. Blank and Damien Faivre

Nano Lett., 2019, 19, 8207-8215

 

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