Dr. Konrad Meister
Konrad Meister received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in biochemistry from the Ruhr-University Bochum Germany. Afterwards he joined the group of Martina Havenith at the same university and completed his Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 2013. From 2014-2018 he did his postdoctoral work with Huib Bakker at the NWO Institute AMOLF in the Netherlands, as a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow. Since 2018 he has been a group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in the department of M. Bonn. Konrad also several research stays at the University of Illinois and participated in four Antarctic expeditions.
Main Research Interests
Understanding Ice-Binding Molecules: “Not a Breeze”
My overreaching research aim is to obtain an understanding of the molecular strategies of freeze-avoiding and freeze-tolerant organisms in response to environmental stress. This is a central question for scientific goals as diverse as the production of antifreeze proteins in cold-stressed plants, insects, fish or microbes; or the analysis of biological residues as potential sources of atmospheric ice nuclei. More specifically, I am interested in identifying novel antifreeze and ice nucleating proteins from different biological sources, and to investigate their structure, working mechanisms and possible applications. To achieve these goals I am using a combination of biochemical, and biophysical assays as well as state-of-the-art physicochemical (spectroscopic) experiments.