News

September 2025
  • ​Christian Eggeling, Julius Trautmann, Bela T. L. Vogler, Francisco Paez Larios and Gaukhar Zhurgenbayeva attended the PicoQuant 30th Single Molecule Workshop in Berlin. Christian gave a talk presenting the advancement of single particle tracking in live cell with Minflux microscopy in our group. Julius presented his research in a talk titled 'Adaptive Optics for Aberration Control in STED and (STED)-FCS: Advancing High-Resolution Single-Molecule Studies'. Bela and Gaukhar presented their work in the poster session!
  • Pia Pritzke won the prize for the best master’s thesis 2025 with the Applied Photonics award from the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering. Congratulation Pia!
  • ​Jena had the honour to host the annual German event 'Highlights Der Physik'. Our group had a booth where Lara Poetzsch, Patrick Then, Christian Eggeling, Pia Pritzke, Daniel Schröder, Bela T. L. Vogler, Katharina Reglinski, Felix Hildebrandt, Delgir Zakinova, Aurelie Jost and Christina Wichmann took shifts to answer the curiosity of the visitors during a full intense week!
  • Agnes Koerfer successfully defended her PhD thesis titled 'Super-resolution fluorescence MINFLUX microscopy to study lipid dynamics in live-cell plasma membranes'. She will now join CSI:Nano LAB at SciLifeLab and Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, for her PostDoctoral research. Congratulation Agnes and all the best!
  • Katharina Reglinski , Delgir Zakinova and Dorottya Koppenhagen attended the EMBO Workshop “Celebrating 70 years of peroxisome research” in Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Spain. Katharina gave a talk titled 'Studying dynamics of the peroxisomal membrane by 3D tracking of peroxisomal membrane proteins using Minflux super-resolution microscopy'. Dorottya and Delgir presented two posters titled 'Application of advanced and super resolution (STED) microscopy to investigate peroxisomal morphology and protein import' and 'Comparison of super-resolution microscopy studies on peroxisomal proteins', respectively. 
​August 2025
  • Our PhD students Felix Hildebrandt, Francisco Paez Larios, Pia Pritzke, and Lukas Harder from the Franke Lab attended DoKDoK 2025, a conference organized by doctoral students and for doctoral students in the field of optics in Eisenach. Felix gave a talk titled ‘Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy: 
    Evaluation of a SPAD array detector approach’. Francisco, Pia and Lukas followed with their poster presentations:
    Francisco: ‘Insights into drug delivery with polymeric nanocarriers using time resolved fluorescence microscopy.’
    Pia: ‘A Protocol to Compare Single-Particle Tracking Performance Across Various Microscopes’
    Lukas: ‘Investigation of lipid nanoparticle uptake using super resolution microscopy’
  • With her outstanding poster Pia won a poster prize at DoKDoK. Congratulations!

June 2025 May 2025
  • Julius Trautmann attended BioMAT 2025 in Weimar! He presented a poster titled 'Standardizing Bacterial Adhesion Testing with Microbiology and Microscopy'.
April 2025
  • Giovanni De Angelis gave a talk on behalf of Prof. Eggeling during the Special Symposium on Interferometric Scattering Microscopy held by the Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences at the Academia Sinica of Taipei. The presentation was titled 'Advance single particle tracking with combined iSCAT and fluorescence observation'.
  • Our PhD students Agnes Koerfer, Felix Hildebrandt, Giovanni De Angelis and Francisco Paez Larios attended Focus On Microscopy (FOM) in Taipei, Taiwan. Agnes gave a talk titled 'Measuring lipid redistribution during HIV-1 assembly with MINFLUX tracking'. Felix presented a poster named 'Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy: evaluation of a SPAD array detector approach'. Giovanni gave a talk titled 'Dynamic single particle measurements with a compact, high throughput iSCAT-TIRF setup' and, finally, Francisco gave a talk named 'Fluorescence lifetime imaging and environment-sensitive dyes enable the visualization of cargo release by drug-loaded nanocarriers'. Congratulation to all of them!

March 2025
  • Delgir Zakinova, Nana Scholz and Pia Pritzke started their PhD in our group. Welcome!
  • We spent three days at Tambach-Dietharz, in the Thuringian forest, for our annual group retreat. Many thanks to Christina Wichmann for organising these nice days!
February 2025
  • Gaukhar Zhurgenbayeva presented her poster about  "Characterization of Candidalysin Peptide Self-Aggregation on Lipid Membranes Using Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy," at the Biophysical Society (BPS) 2025 Conference in Los Angeles. Great job Gaukhar!

  • Julius Trautmann attended SPIE Photonics West in San Francisco and gave a talk titled "Investigating adaptive optics for aberration control in STED and (STED-)FCS microscopy". ​Well done Julius!
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November 2024
  • At the Long Night of Science, our colleagues Charly Rück, Jana Sütterlin, Lena Gauthier, and Sophie Neumann ran a booth where kids could “paint” their own fluorescent postcards and admire them under UV light. The fun part about it: the kids mainly used nutritional products like tonic water, spinach, or pumpkin seed oil for their paintings! (besides the very bright highlighter colors…)

  • It’s becoming a tradition: for the third year in a row, we are celebrating Christmas at the local brewery “Papiermühle” and Secret Santa brings presents for everyone.
October 2024
  • That makes two in a row – our former colleague Philipp Kellner also successfully defended his PhD thesis at Oct 7th – congratulations Philipp!
  • Anindita Dasgupta successfully defended her PhD thesis as Christian’s first graduated PhD student in Jena at Oct 2nd  – congratulations Anindita!
September 2024
  • IAOB day of fun edition 2024: After 3 years, we went again boating on the Saale and it was as nice as in 2021.
  • Our PhD candidate Lena Gauthier presented her work about “Fluorescence microscopy for the determination of optimal therapeutic treatment conditions against viral and bacterial co-infections” at MiCom2024 in Jena.
June 2024
  • Our doctoral researcher Julius Trautmann  gave a talk about "Exploring Adaptive Optics for Controlled Aberration in STED and (STED-)FCS Microscopy" at the European Light Microscopy Initiative 2024 (elmi2024) in Liverpool.
April 2024 March 2024
  • The IAOB retreat 2024 was as great as in the previous years. Our highlight this time: the 2024 lab Olympics. A special thanks goes to our colleague Sophie Neumann for organizing such an amazing evening for us! 
  • The 4th International Conference on Nanoscopy (ICON-Europe 2024) co-organized by our group leader Christian Eggeling in Jena was a great success. Our postdoc Jonatan Alvelid had the chance to present his work on “Automated and event-triggered targeted MINFLUX microscopy”. Our PhD candidate Bela Vogler presented how “Investigating the geometry of 3D molecular movement with MINFLUX microscopy enabled Single Particle Tracking”. And our postdoc Katharina Reglinski talked about “How to use advanced microscopy to study peroxisomes – a multimodal approach from FCS, photoactivation and STED to MINFLUX”.
February 2024
  • Our PhD student Agnes Koerfer won the Travel Award at Biophysical Society (BPS), in Philadelphia. She presented her work on “Measuring lipid dynamics and packing with MINFLUX microscopy”. Congratulation Agnes!
  • Our PhD student Giovanni De Angelis presented his work "Dynamic single particle measurements with a compact, high throughput iSCAT-TIRF setup" at Biophysical Society (BPS), in Philadelphia. Congratulation Giovanni!
  • Our postdoc Christina Wichmann was on a ‘Short Term Scientific Mission’ at the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment in Jouy-en-Josas close to Paris, where she learned how to apply a new combination of TIRF and FCS to study the effects of marginolactones on bacterial membranes.
  • Francesco Reina, after his postdoctoral research in our group, joins Ries group at Max Perutz Labs in Vienna as new Technical Manager for Superresolution Microscopy. All the best Francesco!
January 2024
  • After 5-week visit at the group of Giuseppe Vicidomini from the Italian Institute of Technology (Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia) in Genua where he gained practical experience in working with SPAD array detectors, Felix Hildebrandt starts his PhD in our group. Welcome Felix!

November 2023
  • Anindita Dasgupta, after her PhD in our group, joins Leica Microsystems in the System Integration, Advanced Technology Unit in Mannheim. We organised a farewell party for her. All the best Anindita !
September 2023
  • Bela T. L. Vogler wins the Datathon and the best poster award at the Biophotonics & Artificial Intelligence School in Florence! Congratulation Bela!
  • Julius Trautmann gave a talk about „Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy: Aberration Induction Using Adaptive Optics for Enhanced Molecular Dynamics Analysis” at the 28th International Picoquant workshop on “Single Molecule Spectroscopy and Super-resolution Microscopy” in Berlin.
  • IAOB day of fun edition 2023: Half of the group organized a scavenger’s hunt trough the beautiful autumnal hills surrounding Jena while the other half of the group was very excited to follow their traces. What else could be better than ending the day with a beer or two at our local brewery?
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The good thing about being associated with two institutes? Having two institute summer fests ;)
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Our group representative at EBSA 2023 in Stockholm


August 2023
  • Our PhD student Giovanni De Angelis won the Student Poster Presentation Award at 14th European Biophysical Society (EBSA) meeting, in Stockholm. Congratulation!
  • Our PhD student Agnes Koerfer received a bursary for the 14th European Biophysical Society (EBSA) meeting in Stockholm. Congratulation! She presented her work on “Measuring lipid dynamics and packing with MINFLUX microscopy”. Our postdoc Francesco Reina also gave a talk on “Tracking membrane dynamics on stem cell-derived neurons using 3D MINFLUX”.
May 2023
  • Jonatan Alvelid joined our group as postdoc researcher. Welcome Jonatan!
  • The 7th European Symposium on Biomaterials and Related Areas (BioMAT 2023) was held in Weimar where our PhD student Julius Trautmann presented his work on „Adaptive optics in fluorescence microscopy for testing bacterial adherence”.
March 2023
  • Our PhD student Anindita Dasgupta was selected to participate at the 72nd Lindau Nobel Laureate meeting! Congratulation Anindita!
  • Our PhD candidate Julius Trautmann represented our group at the spring meeting of Condensed Matter Section of the German Physical Society in Dresden, where he talked about „Adaptive optics in Confocal microscopy and Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy“.
  • Second time but not second best: we were again in Tambach-Dietharz right in the center of the Thuringian Forest for our group retreat 2023. 4 days full of workshops, discussions, and FUN. Lasertag was definitively one of our favorites this year.

February 2023 
  • Our colleagues Gaukhar Zhurgenbayeva and Francesco Reina presented their work at the annual meeting of the Biophysical Society (BPS2023) in San Diego, USA. They talked about the “Quantification of biophysical properties of Candidalysin, a fungal peptide toxin secreted by C.albicans during invasion” and the “Quantification of Lipid Diffusion Dynamics on live cell membranes through interferometric Scattering microscopy”. 

December 2022
  • We organized a farewell party for our postdoc and good friend Pablo Carravilla who will continue his career at the Karolinska Institute (SciLifeLab) in Sweden. We wish you all the best for your future, Pablo!
November 2022
  • Nov 18th – you may think it is early for a Christmas dinner – but in November, nobody is stressed yet so it’s the perfect occasion for a joyful Christmas party. This year, we celebrated at our local brewery “Papiermühle” in Jena. 
October 2022
  • Giovanni De Angelis starts his PhD with us. Welcome Giovanni!
  • Francisco Pàez Larios starts his PhD with us. Welcome Francisco!
August 2022
  • IAOB day of fun edition 2022: Can you hit the target? Even if it is not a ‘team sport’, archery is pretty good for ‘team building‘ – we had a great day outside in the woods!
June 2022
  • Our latest work on super-resolved diffusion of peroxisomal proteins will be featured in the cover of the next Biophysical Reports issue. Thanks again Alexey Chizhik!
  • Our PhD student Yashar Rouzbahani had the pleasure to participate in the FEBS Practical Course “Functional imaging of cellular dynamics” in Amsterdam, where he also talked about “Advanced microscope studies of the cell polarization instructing activity of Ras proteins”.



May 2022
  • Our PhD candidate Gaukhar Zhurgenbayeva became the ‘famous face’ of the international workshop “Women in Photonics” that was organized by the Leibniz IPHT in Jena.
 
March 2022
  • Wow, what a feeling! After 2 years of isolation and social distancing, we were able to go on our first group retreat! We spent 4 days in a small town Tambach-Dietharz in the Thuringian Forest and could even do a little bit of sightseeing.
February 2022December 2021
September 2021
  • Ziliang Zhao joins our group as a postdoc researcher. Welcome Ziliang!
  • Jacopo Abramo also joins our group to carry out his PhD. Welcome Jacopo!
  • IAOB day of fun edition 2021: We had a wonderful day of fun exploring our ‘hometown’ river Saale with rubber boats. 
March 2021
  • TRAIT2D is released! A Python software package to support Single Particle Tracking Experiments. It was developed by Francesco Reina and John Wigg from our group, together with our collaborators Mariia Dmitrieva, Joël Lefebvre and Jens Rittscher. You can find the preprint here.

January 2021
  • The Collaborative Research Centre PolyTarget, of which our group is part of, is featured by the Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena. Check out the video here!


October 2020
  • We receive our new MINFLUX system from Abberior.
  • The new Abberior Expert Line STED microscope is installed. Featuring multicolour 3D STED and single photon counting electronics.
September 2020
  • Yashar Rouzbahani succesfully defends his Medical Photonics Master thesis Diffusion studies of different lipids on model membranes. Congratulations Yashar! He will now doing his PhD with us.

August 2020
  • The contemporary art museum Sinclair-Haus selects an image by Gaukhar Zhurgenbayeva for their What is Nature? exhibition. The image depicts a Candida albicans yeast invading a gut epithelial cell.

May 2020
  • Pablo Carravilla is featured in the Snapshots: Research at Leibniz IPHT video series. You can check the video here.
March 2020
  • Alva Seltmann, Francesco Reina and John Wigg, as part of the multidisciplinary #SimThinkAct group, participate in the WirVsVirus Hackathon of the German Federal Government, creating a web app for creative health education in the process. The app #SimThinkAct has been shortlisted in the top 10% of projects by the organisers!
  • Francesco Reina presents his results on model and cell membrane Single Particle Tracking at the Trends in Microscopy 2020 Spring School organized by the German Bioimaging society (Münsingen).
February 2020
  • Pablo Carravilla is awarded a MSCA Individual Fellowship from the European Commission.
  • Anindita Dasgupta joins our group. She will do her PhD with us. Welcome!
January 2020
  • Alva Seltmann presents her work on using Deep Learning to correct FCS measurements at QBI 2020 (Oxford).
  • Our new web page is online!