Gisela Brändén

Biography

I am a structural biochemist with a pharmaceutical industry background. Since a few years back I am now leading a research group at the Department of Chemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Gothenburg

Research Interest

The focus of my research group is to study the structure, function and dynamics of membrane proteins. We use a combination of different biochemical and biophysical methods to describe proteins in detail as they work, including X-ray crystallography, absorbance spectroscopy, WAXS (Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering) and X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) coherent diffractive imaging. We put a lot of effort into development of time resolved synchrotron- and XFEL-based methods. Using these methods we investigate the energy converting systems of the cell, more specifically cytochrome oxidase of the respiratory chain and bacterial photosynthetic reaction center. In addition we use microtubules, the major constituent of the cytoskeleton, as a model system for XFEL imaging.