Levkin Research Group of Biofunctional Materials

Congratulations to Anna Popova, Haijun Cui and Sun Xueyuan, whose paper has been just accepted for publication in Advanced Healthcare Materials: "Repurposing FDA-Approved Drugs for Temozolomide-resistant IDH1 Mutant Glioma using High-Throughput Miniaturized Screening on Droplet Microarray Chip"!🥳🥳🥳

In this paper, several thousands of FDA approved drugs were screened with Glioma spheroids. This was a very successful collaboration with the group of Sevin Turcan from Heidelberg/DKFZ. The screen identified several novel compounds potent against glioma (brain tumor).

Link to paper :)

We are excited to announced that Qian-Pu (Antonio) Cheng is joining our research for the next two months.

A very warm welcome to you, Antonio! :)

We are currently seeking a highly motivated and talented individual to join our team as a PhD student. The successful candidate will have a background in chemistry or materials science, with a keen interest in sensors, diagnostics, surface coating and chemical surface modification.

Read more under "Open Positions".

We present our comprehensive concept that considers assisted image annotation, algorithms for image processing of grid-like high-throughput experiments, and enhanced learning processes. Congratulations to Marcel and co-authors (incl. Razan,Joaquin, Anna, and Pavel)!

Link to the paper.

Our next paper about PEGgels - new type of functional gels. This time we managed to make PEGgel extremely tough, while showing shape-memory property and 3D printability. Polymerization of 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate in a mixture of PEG (good solvent) and PPG (bad solvent) leads to phase separation and increased toughness as well as shape-memory property.

Link to the paper.

Lutong Lu receently did his master thesis in our group - and he did excellent job! So, we are very pleased to now announce that he will continue as a PhD student. Looking forward to continuously having you as a part of the Levkin Research Group!

Our new group member Julián Serna’s proposal for a DAAD scholarship has just been accepted! Congratulations Julián,  very well deserved!

A new method for high-throughput purification of synthesized compounds using miniaturized liquid-liquid extraction on a chip has been developed to accelerate drug discovery by allowing synthesis and screening to be carried out on the same platform. Congratulations to Janne!

Link to the paper.

Our group wishes everyone Merry Christmas and a Happy New 2023 year! Let´s hope together that 2023 will be much better than 2022. We wish you a lot of health and a lot of peace in 2023.

Welcome to Dr. Saltuk Hanay (photo) who just joined our group. Saltuk is going to be a member of the Excellence Cluster 3D Matter Made to Order. Saltuk will work on a new translation project in collaboration with Prof. Eva Blasco.

Our paper titled “Droplet microarray based screening identifies proteins for maintaining pluripotency of hiPSCs” has been published in Advanced Healthcare Materials. Congratulations to Yanxi Liu, Anna Popova and our great collaborators Sarah Bertels, Markus Reischl, Ravindra Peravali and Martin Bastmeyer!

Welcome to Dr. Nikolaj Mandsberg who has joined our group! Nikolaj recently graduated from DTU, spent a year as a member of Joanna Aizenberg´s lab in Harvard and received the Carlsberg Foundation Internationalization Fellowship!

Our group participated in the “15th Heidelberg Drachenboat race” on the Neckar river. It was fun, despite of our 16th place;) Very nice event.

Many applications reached us in the last few days, much more than our laboratory can host. For this reason, we cannot offer any more internships. However, we are working together with other research groups to enable more laboratory placements at KIT in the near future. Until then, please refrain from sending E-Mails. Many people seemed to confuse our offer. Please note that this is about internships in a chemical or biological laboratory, and NOT enabling you to study your subject at KIT. Please do not just come directly to our laboratory. We are not housing refugees on Campus. Housing is a task of the state (Baden-Württemberg), the federal government (Germany), NGOs, or private helpers.

There is a FAQ from the BAMF:

Link (English)
Link (Ukrainian)

We wish everyone the best in these hard times.

If you are pursuing a degree in chemistry, biology, chemical biology, material science, pharmacy, or a related subject in any Ukrainian university or research institute and you are interested in a laboratory internship at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, please contact me via E-Mail.

After the shocking events of last week, it is important to me to demonstrate that the international scientific community knows no borders and is united against war. Young individuals eager to get a higher education should not be restricted by the aggressive actions of another state. For this reason, I would like to follow the admirable examples of many of my colleagues and offer students in Ukraine a placement in my laboratory at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).

My group can offer a warm and international environment, financial support, and many exciting projects in an excellence university.

Sharing is highly appreciated!

Pavel A. Levkin

levkingroup.com

Check out our recent Adv. Mater. paper on mechanically tough, transparent, 3D printable and self-healing polyethylene glycol-gel (PEGgel).

PEG is used as a solvent and not as a covalent crosslinker, leading to these properties.

Congrantulation to Zhenwu and all co-authors!

3D printing offers great flexibility in the creation of precisely engineered objects with highly complex geometries. This is rapidly opening up possibilities in many fields, including aerospace, robotics, construction and medicine.

Read more in the ZEISS News!

Check out our recent Adv. Mater. paper on 3D-printed extremely water-repellent, superhydrophobic, objects with unlimited geometry: superhydrophobic microfluidic channels, oil-absorbing structures and more. 

Congratulation to Zheqin and all co-authors!

The EPICUR PhD Exchange Programme. The 2- to 6-month EPICUR PhD exchange programme will be offered between February and July 2022.

Apply here:
https://register.epicur.auth.gr/assets/courses/catalogue/study-program.html?id=PHDEX

If you are doing PhD in one of these Universities: Adam-Mickiewicz University of Poznań, Poland; University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece; University of Freiburg, Germany; University of Haute-Alsace, France; Karlsruher Institute for Technology, Germany; University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria; University of Strasbourg, France.