Professor Dirk-Peter Herten

Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences
School of Chemistry
Chair in Cell Biology of Membrane Proteins

Contact details

Email: d.herten@bham.ac.uk

Address: Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences & School of Chemistry
College of Medical and Dental Sciences
Medical School
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
B15 2TT

Dirk-Peter Herten is a Chair in Cell Biology of Membrane Proteins at the University of Birmingham shared by the Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and the School of Chemistry with his labs located in the Institute of Biomedical Research (IBR).

Dirk’s interdisciplinary research spans from microscopy techniques over switchable fluorescent probes to biological applications, like T-cell signalling in the context of inflammation. He has specialized in single-molecule microscopy enabling quantitative studies of the composition and dynamics of cellular structures and enzymatic reactions in living cells.

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-3884-0262

Researcher ID: P-4836-2016

Qualifications

Venia legendi in Physical Chemistry 2008
PhD in Physical Chemistry 2000
Diploma in Chemistry, Heidelberg University 1996

Biography

Dirk graduated from the Heidelberg Department of Physical Chemistry in 2000 after studying Chemistry at the Heidelberg University, Germany.

After collecting experiences in industry at ATTO-TEC GmbH, Germany he returned to academia in 2002 by specializing in single-molecule spectroscopy at Heidelberg University where he was awarded the venia legendi in Physical Chemistry in 2008. In 2015 he became University Professor in Single-Molecule Spectroscopy at Heidelberg University until accepting a Chair in Cell Biology of Membrane Proteins at the University of Birmingham in 2019.

Research

Dirk researches tools to enable quantitative studies of the composition and dynamics of cellular structures and enzymatic reactions in living cells. This highly interdisciplinary research will improve our general understanding of intracellular functions and cellular responses to external stimuli in the context of various diseases by bridging biochemistry and cell biology. The design of fluorescent probes for live-cell single-molecule studies has potential for biomedical research and diagnostic applications.

Dirk is currently active in three areas in single-molecule research: single photon based molecular counting, switchable fluorescent probes for advanced fluorescence microscopy, e.g. super-resolution in living cells, and single-molecule studies of chemical reaction pathways.

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Asenov Tashev, S, Euchner, J, Yserentant, K, Hänselmann, S, Hild, F, Chmielewicz, W, Hummert, J, Schwörer, F, Tsopoulidis, N, Germer, S, Saßmannshausen, Z, Fackler, OT, Klingmüller, U & Herten, D 2024, 'ProDOL: A general method to determine the degree of labelling for staining optimization and molecular counting', Nature Methods. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-024-02376-6

Clark, JC, Martin, EM, Morán, LA, Di, Y, Wang, X, Zuidscherwoude, M, Brown, HC, Kavanagh, DM, Hummert, J, Eble, JA, Nieswandt, B, Stegner, D, Pollitt, AY, Herten, D, Tomlinson, MG, García, A & Watson, SP 2023, 'Divalent nanobodies to platelet CLEC-2 can serve as agonists or antagonists', Communications Biology, vol. 6, no. 1, 376. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-023-04766-6

Hild, F, Werther, P, Yserentant, K, Wombacher, R & Herten, D-P 2022, 'A dark intermediate in the fluorogenic reaction between tetrazine fluorophores and trans-cyclooctene', Biophysical Reports, vol. 2, no. 4, 100084. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpr.2022.100084

Muzzopappa, F, Hummert, J, Anfossi, M, Tashev, S, Herten, D & Erdel, F 2022, 'Detecting and quantifying liquid–liquid phase separation in living cells by model-free calibrated half-bleaching', Nature Communications, vol. 13, no. 1, 7787. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-35430-y

Ziegler, MJ, Yserentant, K, Dunsing, V, Middel, V, Gralak, AJ, Pakari, K, Bargstedt, J, Kern, C, Petrich, A, Chiantia, S, Strähle, U, Herten, D-P & Wombacher, R 2022, 'Mandipropamid as a chemical inducer of proximity for in vivo applications', Nature Chemical Biology, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 64-69. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41589-021-00922-3

Werther, P, Yserentant, K, Braun, F, Grußmayer, K, Navikas, V, Yu, M, Zhang, Z, Ziegler, MJ, Mayer, C, Gralak, AJ, Busch, M, Chi, W, Rominger, F, Radenovic, A, Liu, X, Lemke, EA, Buckup, T, Herten, DP & Wombacher, R 2021, 'Bio-orthogonal red and far-red fluorogenic probes for wash-free live-cell and super-resolution microscopy', ACS Central Science, vol. 7, no. 9, pp. 1561–1571. https://doi.org/10.1021/acscentsci.1c00703

Navikas, V, Leitao, SM, Grussmayer, KS, Descloux, A, Drake, B, Yserentant, K, Werther, P, Herten, D-P, Wombacher, R, Radenovic, A & Fantner, GE 2021, 'Correlative 3D microscopy of single cells using super-resolution and scanning ion-conductance microscopy', Nature Communications, vol. 12, no. 1, 4565, pp. 4565. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-24901-3

Clark, J, Neagoe, RAI, Zuidscherwoude, M, Kavanagh, D, Slater, A, Martin, E, Soave, M, Stegner, D, Nieswandt, B, Poulter, N, Hummert, J, Herten, D-P, Tomlinson, M, Hill, SJ & Watson, S 2021, 'Evidence that GPVI is expressed as a mixture of monomers and dimers, and that the D2 domain is not essential for GPVI activation: GPVI dimerisation is not critical for ligand binding', Thrombosis and Haemostasis, vol. 2021, no. 00, pp. 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1055/a-1401-5014

Hummert, J, Yserentant, K, Fink, T, Euchner, J, Ho, YX, Tashev, SA & Herten, D-P 2021, 'Photobleaching step analysis for robust determination of protein complex stoichiometries', Molecular Biology of the Cell, vol. 32, no. 21, pp. ar35. https://doi.org/10.1091/mbc.E20-09-0568

Wiegand, T, Fratini, M, Frey, F, Yserentant, K, Liu, Y, Weber, E, Galior, K, Ohmes, J, Braun, F, Herten, D-P, Boulant, S, Schwarz, US, Salaita, K, Cavalcanti-adam, EA & Spatz, JP 2020, 'Forces during cellular uptake of viruses and nanoparticles at the ventral side', Nature Communications, vol. 11, no. 1, 32. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-13877-w

Sedlmeier, G, Al-Rawi, V, Buchert, J, Yserentant, K, Rothley, M, Steshina, A, Gräßle, S, Wu, R-L, Hurrle, T, Richer, W, Decraene, C, Thiele, W, Utikal, J, Abuillan, W, Tanaka, M, Herten, D-P, Hill, CS, Garvalov, BK, Jung, N, Bräse, S & Sleeman, JP 2020, 'Id1 and Id3 Are Regulated Through Matrix‐Assisted Autocrine BMP Signaling and Represent Therapeutic Targets in Melanoma', Advanced Therapeutics. https://doi.org/10.1002/adtp.202000065

Werther, P, Yserentant, K, Braun , F, Kaltwasser, N, Popp , C, Baalmann , M, Herten, D-P & Wombacher, R 2020, 'Live‐cell localization microscopy with a fluorogenic and self‐blinking tetrazine probe', Angewandte Chemie - International Edition, vol. 59, no. 2, pp. 804-810. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201906806

Erdel, F, Rademacher, A, Vlijm, R, Tünnermann, J, Frank, L, Weinmann, R, Schweigert, E, Yserentant, K, Hummert, J, Bauer, C, Schumacher, S, Al Alwash, A, Normand, C, Herten, D-P, Engelhardt, J & Rippe, K 2020, 'Mouse heterochromatin adopts digital compaction states without showing hallmarks of HP1-driven liquid-liquid phase separation', Molecular Cell, vol. 78, no. 2, pp. 236-249.e7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molcel.2020.02.005

Preprint

Navikas, V, Leitao, SM, Grussmayer, KS, Descloux, A, Drake, B, Yserentant, K, Werther, P, Herten, D-P, Wombacher, R, Radenovic, A & Fantner, GE 2020 'Correlative 3D microscopy of single cells using super-resolution and scanning ion-conductance microscopy'. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.11.09.374157

Review article

Hummert, J, Tashev, SA & Herten, D-P 2021, 'An update on molecular counting in fluorescence microscopy', The International Journal of Biochemistry & Cell Biology, vol. 135, 105978. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocel.2021.105978

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