Cell News 04/2018
20
André Bachmann (BINDER
Central Services GmbH & Co. KG),
prize winner Carsten Grashoff
(middle), Carien Niessen
that the method is widely applicable (Borghi et al. 2012, Krieg
et al. 2014, Paszek et al. 2014, Sim et al. 2015, Lagendijk et
al. 2017). That said, tension sensor measurements are still labo-
rious, necessitate extensive control experiments, and require
expert knowledge on FRET microscopy and data analysis. It will
therefore be important to further simplify imaging protocols
and develop analysis software to make this technology accessi-
ble also to non-expert users.
Acknowledgements
I thank all past and present members of my group, most
importantly Dr Anna Chrostek-Grashoff. This work would not
have been possible without her selfless dedication to advising
students and postdocs, and running the laboratory. I would
like to express my deepest gratitude to Prof Reinhard Fässler
for generous support over the last years, and I am grateful to
many collaborators, most importantly Matthias Rief at the TU
Munich. This research was supported by the Max Planck Soci-
ety, the Max Planck Förderstiftung, and the German Research
Foundation (DFG) through a Research Fellowship, the Emmy
Noether Program, the SFB 863, the SPP1782, and the DGF-ANR
Program.
About the Author
Carsten Grashoff studied Applied Science at the University of
Freiberg and performed his Diploma studies at the Robert Koch
Institute in Berlin. He then moved to the Max Planck Institute
of Biochemistry and earned his PhD in 2007, working on cell
adhesion in the lab of Reinhard Fässler. In 2007, he moved
to the University of Virginia (USA) and developed the first
calibrated tension sensor in the lab of Martin A. Schwartz. In
2011, he received an Emmy Noether Fellowship of the German
Research Foundation and returned as an independent group
leader to the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry. In 2014,
he was recognized with a Paul Gerson Unna Fellowship of the
Max Planck Foundation, and was appointed University Profes-
sor at the WWU Münster in 2018. Carsten Grashoff received
several awards including the Georgius Agricola Medal from the
University of Freiberg, the Junior Research Award from the Max
Planck Institute of Biochemistry, and the Early Career Award
from the German National Academy of Science (Leopoldina).
References
Austen, K., C. Kluger, A. Freikamp, A. Chrostek-Grashoff and
C. Grashoff (2013). Generation and analysis of biosensors to
measure mechanical forces within cells. Methods Mol Biol
1066, 169-184.
Austen, K., P. Ringer, A. Mehlich, A. Chrostek-Grashoff, C.
Kluger, C. Klingner, B. Sabass, R. Zent, M. Rief and C. Grashoff
(2015). Extracellular rigidity sensing by talin isoform-specific
mechanical linkages. Nat Cell Biol 17, 1597-1606.
Borghi, N., M. Sorokina, O. G. Shcherbakova, W. I. Weis, B. L.
BINDER INNOVATION PRIZE 2018
