Erich Sackmann (26 November 1934 – 29 May 2024) was a German experimental physicist and a pioneer of biophysics in Europe.

Education

Sackmann obtained his MSc (1961) and PhD (1964) degrees from the University of Stuttgart in the group of Theodor Förster.

Career

Following the awarding of his PhD, Sackmann then spent two years at

Bell Telephone Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey, the compa ...

in Murray Hill, New Jersey, and six years at Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany. Between 1974 and 1980 he was professor of physics and head of the biophysics department at Universität Ulm, and from 1980 until retirement in 2003 he held the same positions at the Physics Department of the

Technical University of Munich The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; ) is a public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied and natural sciences. Established in 1868 by King Ludwig II ...

Research

Sackmann dedicated a lifetime of research towards probing the living cell with tools of physics, long before biophysics was the mode of the day. Considered as a father of biophysics in Europe, he pioneered, along with others, the idea of a "bottom up" approach towards understanding the cell – starting from relatively simple systems like lipid bilayers, giant vesicles and actin in solution and going towards more and more complex systems to reach eventually an understanding at the level of the entire cell. More than 200 publications and several book
Literatur von und über Erich Sackmann
testify to his contributions to

soft matter Soft matter or soft condensed matter is a type of matter that can be deformed or structurally altered by thermal or mechanical stress which is of similar magnitude to thermal fluctuations. The science of soft matter is a subfield of condensed ...

and

biophysics Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations ...

. His early work was mainly on lyotropic

liquid crystals Liquid crystal (LC) is a state of matter whose properties are between those of conventional liquids and those of solid crystals. For example, a liquid crystal can flow like a liquid, but its molecules may be oriented in a common direction as i ...

and lipid membranes. Later, along with his students he laid the foundations of our current understanding of membrane adhesion. Over the years, his team developed and improved the technique of reflection interference contrast microscopy – RICM (which is quantitative interference reflection microscopy – IRM) – a powerful tool to probe adhesion of membranes and thin films. Collaborations with theoreticians like Reinhard Lipowsky, Udo Seifert and Robijn Bruinsma have led to seminal works on adhesion of cell mimetic giant vesicles (also called

liposomes A liposome is a small artificial vesicle, spherical in shape, having at least one lipid bilayer. Due to their hydrophobicity and/or hydrophilicity, biocompatibility, particle size and many other properties, liposomes can be used as drug deliver ...

). Another of his interests was the

cytoskeleton The cytoskeleton is a complex, dynamic network of interlinking protein filaments present in the cytoplasm of all cells, including those of bacteria and archaea. In eukaryotes, it extends from the cell nucleus to the cell membrane and is compos ...

and its dynamics. To study cytoskeletal dynamics, his team developed magnetic tweezers capable of exerting very small pulling forces. He contributed to our understanding of the dynamics of single

actin Actin is a family of globular multi-functional proteins that form microfilaments in the cytoskeleton, and the thin filaments in muscle fibrils. It is found in essentially all eukaryotic cells, where it may be present at a concentration of ...

filaments,

networks Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...

as well as intact living cells. His research interests included: physics of self assembly and function of artificial and biological membranes,

viscoelastic In materials science and continuum mechanics, viscoelasticity is the property of materials that exhibit both Viscosity, viscous and Elasticity (physics), elastic characteristics when undergoing deformation (engineering), deformation. Viscous mate ...

microscopy Microscopy is the technical field of using microscopes to view subjects too small to be seen with the naked eye (objects that are not within the resolution range of the normal eye). There are three well-known branches of microscopy: optical mic ...

of cells, physics of the

based

: micro-

rheology Rheology (; ) is the study of the flow of matter, primarily in a fluid (liquid or gas) state but also as "soft solids" or solids under conditions in which they respond with plastic flow rather than deforming elastically in response to an applie ...

of macromolecular networks, applications of solid-supported lipid-protein membranes, ultrathin hydrated

polymer A polymer () is a chemical substance, substance or material that consists of very large molecules, or macromolecules, that are constituted by many repeat unit, repeating subunits derived from one or more species of monomers. Due to their br ...

layers and polymer/membrane composite films and neutron reflectivity as a new tool to study the self assembly of membrane associated proteins.

Selected bibliography

Along with Reinhard Lipowsky, he authored ''The Structure and Dynamics of Membranes''. With Rudolf Merkel, he published ''Lehrbuch der Biophysik'' – a text book on biophysics aimed at students and researchers.

Awards and honors

He was elected a

fellow of the American Physical Society The American Physical Society honors members with the designation ''Fellow'' for having made significant accomplishments to the field of physics. The following lists are divided chronologically by the year of designation. * List of fellows of the ...

in 2002. In recognition of his research work, in 2006, he was awarded the Stern-Gerlach-Medal by the DPG, German Physical Society.

References