Department of Biophysics

Welcome to the web home for the Department of Biophysics.  The Department of Biophysics is one of ten basic science departments in the Institute of Experimental Physics Slovak Academy of Science.  Basic biophysical, biochemical, and biomedical research are a key mission and activity in the Department.  Biophysics at IEP is wide ranging and covers many biological interests and biophysical techniques:

Amyloid structures (Zuzana Gazova, DSc.). Protein amyloid aggregation – Specific amyloid self-assemblies associated with pathogenesis of many diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases and diabetes type II.  We have three long-term goals related to study the amyloid formation: I) to elucidate the mechanism of amyloid aggregation of amyloidogenetic proteins; II) to examinethe role of low-molecular substances and/or nanoparticles in depolimerization or inhibition of amyloid aggregation; and III) to determine the way how to detect the Alzheimer’s disease in early stage.

Protein-based supramolecular complexes (Katarina Siposova, PhD.).  Self-assembly based on autonomous, non-covalent interactions between distinct building blocks without requirements of external energy sources is of great importance in nature. Our long-term goal is exploring the structure-function relationship of proteins undergoing the self-assembly processes, in normal conditions and pathology. Our research is focused on: I) elucidation of the role of oxidative stress and redox perturbations in the protein-protein interaction; II) fabrication of bio-inspired nanomaterials based on the synergistic combination of both biomacromolecules, protein, and DNA leading to unique, highly programmable and sophisticated functional hybrid nanostructures, which are and display remarkable features that create new opportunities to build materials on the nanoscale; III) ) implementation of the mathematical modeling to a) describe the experimental results, and, b) investigate the electron-transfer processes within protein supra-complexes and nanostructures.   

Biomedical image analysis (Zoltan Tomori, PhD.). Micro-robotics represents a synthesis of physics, robotics and image analysis. Our research and experimental work is oriented to their application in biophysics. We exploit two-photon polymerization apparatus to fabricate tools for micro-manipulation. They are driven by force effect of laser beams using holographic optical tweezers. (for more see: BIOMEDICAL IMAGE ANALYSIS AND MICRO-BIO ROBOTICS (saske.sk))

In general, our departmental research methodologies cover a broad spectrum of techniques and experimental approaches; employ state-of-the-art instrumentation for biological imaging and protein structural and functional analysis, including optical tweezers, atomic force microscopy, UV/VIS/IR spectrophotometer, spectrofluorimeters, differential scanning calorimeter and many others.

Thank you for your visit; explore our website and discover who we are and what we do.