About the authors

Harald Herrmann

Harald Herrmann studied biology with a major in biochemistry and received his Ph.D. at the University of Hamburg, Germany. He is currently a group leader at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and a senior lecturer at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. During the past few years, his interest has concentrated on intermediate filaments in relation to disease.

Harald Bär

Harald Bär is a trained and practising cardiologist who spent a sabbatical in the laboratory of Harald Herrmann. He is interested in the pathomechanisms that underlie the development of heritable forms of cardiomyopathy, in particular those caused by mutations in structural proteins of the extrasarcomeric cytoskeleton.

Laurent Kreplak

Laurent Kreplak is a physicist by training and a postdoctoral fellow with Ueli Aebi in the M.E. Müller Institute for Structural Biology (Biozentrum, University of Basel, Switzerland). He is interested in nanoscale approaches to understand the molecular basis of the mechanical properties of intermediate filaments and their mechanical role in vivo.

Sergei V. Strelkov

Sergei V. Strelkov studied biophysics at the Moscow Institute for Physics and Technology, Russia, and later specialized in structural biology and X-ray crystallography. His research is aimed at understanding the molecular mechanisms of cellular processes, in which the elucidation of the three-dimensional structure of proteins and their assemblies has a central role.

Ueli Aebi

Ueli Aebi was trained in physics and molecular biology. His laboratory pursues a structure-based mechanistic understanding of supramolecular assemblies by a hybrid methods experimental approach. The laboratory focus is on cytoskeletal filaments, protein fibrillogenesis, the nuclear pore complex and nucleocytoplasmic transport. More recent topics also include nanobiology and nanomedicine.