General considerations

For your bachelor's-, master's- or PhD-thesis you can expect three months to three years of exciting work at the intersection between physics and theoretical biology. Current open questions in the field of biomolecular dynamics, ranging from condensed matter physics to life sciences and from material design to pharmaceutical industry, often require state-of-the-art numerical techniques like biomolecular dynamics simulations and large-scale computer simulations. The research we offer involves molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, methods to reduce the dimensionality of the problem, machine learning, various analysis methods and more.

Things you can learn

Depending on the topic of your thesis, this might involve

deep insights in the thematic complex
simulations of molecular systems of biological/pharmaceutical interest
modeling of very complex biomolecular systems
development and implementation of analysis software
'big-data' MD simulations analysis using state-of-the-art analysis techniques such as various machine learning algorithms
discovery of important properties in the data and their presentation

What you should bring along

Interest in computational physics
Basic knowledge in programming (we mostly use Python3)
Enthusiasm for scientific work and discussion
Even though you will tackle enthralling questions at the intersection of physics and biology, previous biological knowledge is NOT necessarily required :)

Available projects

Learning the signaling pathways of proteins , Bachelors/Masters Thesis
Pulling Harder and Harder: Convergence of Free Energy Calculations , Bachelors/Masters Thesis
Hard vs. Soft Springs: Comparing Pulling in Atomic Force Microscopy Simulations , Bachelors/Masters Thesis
Unbinding Characteristics of Kinase Inhibitors, Bachelors/Masters Thesis
Mimicking Electronic Degrees of Freedom in MD Simulations , Bachelors Thesis

These are only a few examples of open research projects. In principle, research projects are available for all our research topics. To learn more about this, please contact Prof. Gerhard Stock to arrange a meeting.

Bachelor's thesis

Lasting only three months, a bachelor's thesis project typically focuses on a quite well-defined topic, e.g., devise and test a new method for some well-established model problem. For many students, the bachelor's thesis work is the first chance to do science on a professional level.

Example of a recent bachelor's thesis:

, Franziska Teichmann

Master's thesis

Working actively in the thematic area for one year means that you can not only get a good overview of the topics, but you can also develop and implement your own ideas. The rough scope is given by the topic, but the student is encouraged to try own approaches which are then discussed on a regular basis and a feedback and guidance is given.

Example of a recent Master's thesis

, Fabian Rudolf

PhD thesis

Becoming a PhD in Physics in our group means that you get to chance to spend three to four years of your academic life to gain profound insights and hopefully solve an intriguing problem of theoretical biophysics. Within that time, you become an expert in a highly topical field of computational physics, which will be the key for a postdoctoral position at some major universities or the starting point of a career in privat industry.

Example of a recent PhD thesis

, Georg Diez