Emelie Weinhold, a master's student in the Simulation Technology (M.Sc.) program at the University of Stuttgart, has won the Poster Award at the 15th European Biophysics Congress (EBSA2025) in Rome for her work on the "Parametrization of Interactions of Coarse-Grained DNA Origami and Lipid Membranes".
Her project, supervised by Kristyna Pluhackova from the SimTech Junior Research Group for Molecular Dynamics, focuses on developing coarse-grained models to simulate the interactions between DNA-origami structures and lipid membranes. These simulations are crucial for advancing applications in drug delivery, nanophotonics, and synthetic biology, especially where atomistic modeling becomes computationally infeasible.
Emelie’s research was conducted as part of the interdisciplinary Simulation Technology master’s program that provides students with a solid foundation in mathematics, computer science, and engineering, combined with specialized knowledge in modeling and simulation. It is part of a broader initiative, fostering cutting-edge research in simulation across disciplines. More about the SimTech M.Sc. program
"I enjoyed the conference a lot, not only the talks but also the conversations in the breaks," said Emelie. "The people I met at the conference have made me excited for research in biophysics. I hope to continue in this field and maybe I can meet some of them again at future conferences."
Held at the iconic Palazzo dei Congressi in Rome from June 30 to July 4, the EBSA2025 brought together leading biophysicists from across Europe. The congress was co-organized by the Italian Society for Pure and Applied Biophysics (SIBPA), EBSA, and The Protein Society, with the support of IUPAB.
Emelie’s poster stood out among numerous high-quality submissions and was recognized for its scientific rigor, clarity, and relevance to current challenges in biophysical modeling.
Kristyna Pluhackova also contributed to the scientific program with a talk on molecular dynamics methods. Read more about her presentation here.