Kerstin is a biophysicist working in Marta Bally´s group at Clinical Microbiology. She got a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions postdoctoral fellowship to investigate Ebola Virus attachment to cells.
Kerstin studied physics at the FU Berlin where she discovered her interest in biophysical research. This lead her to change to Pharmacology for her PhD at Universität Wuerzburg. Directly after her PhD she joined the group of Marta Bally in February 2020. Thus she changed the research area yet again to Virology, showing that biophysical methods are very versatile and can be employed to look at different biological or medical questions.
In her current project Kerstin is investigating viral pseudotypes that present the Ebola Glycoprotein on their surfaces. The glycoprotein is the only surface protein of Ebola Virus and thus solely responsible for viral attachment to the cell surface. Hence, pseudotypes that are decorated with the Ebola Glycoprotein will emulate the binding behaviour of the virus but are much safer. Using Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence (TIRF) microscopy, Kerstin characterises the pseudotypes and also studies their binding behaviour to model surfaces.
Umeå Postdoc Society
Kerstin is the president of the Umeå Postdoc Society - an association open to all postdocs in Umeå.
An organisation for all postdocs in Umeå.
