Lemke holds the chair of Synthetic Biophysics at JGU and is adjunct director at the Institute of Molecular Biology. The group's signature is combining genetic code expansion -- installing non-canonical amino acids so a dye can be clicked onto one chosen residue -- with single-molecule fluorescence: smFRET on intrinsically disordered proteins, super-resolution imaging of the nuclear pore complex and its FG-nucleoporin permeability barrier, and engineered membraneless organelles used as designer compartments in living cells. The result is single-molecule-resolution measurement of conformational dynamics and phase behaviour inside cells rather than in vitro. Relative to the established NV-ensemble quantum-sensing playbook (DEER, nanoscale NMR, T1 relaxometry at pT/sqrt(Hz) ensemble sensitivity), this is the strongest biosensing/advanced-microscopy host in Mainz: the labelling chemistry is precisely what a quantum-sensing postdoc would need to attach nanodiamonds or spin labels to a defined protein site, and the group already operates at the single-molecule sensitivity limit optically. Large, well-funded, internationally recruiting group.

Nussberger holds the biophysics chair at Stuttgart's Institute of Biomaterials and Biomolecular Systems. The group studies how proteins cross and insert into membranes -- mitochondrial protein translocases (TOM complex), apoptosis-related pore formation -- using single-channel electrophysiology, single-molecule fluorescence and structural methods, and has pushed this into an explicit nanopore/biosensing line: engineered protein and DNA-based pores as single-molecule sensors, including the DNA-origami nanosyringe for directed membrane translocation published with Na Liu's group. Relative to the established NV-ensemble quantum-sensing playbook (DEER, nanoscale NMR, T1 relaxometry at pT/sqrt(Hz) ensemble sensitivity), the relevance is the readout channel: nanopore sensing is the electrical single-molecule counterpart to optical single-molecule detection, and the group's membrane expertise is exactly what an in-cell quantum-sensing project needs when the question becomes how to get the probe across a bilayer.

Applies advanced single-molecule biosensing to study the cyanobacterial circadian clock — the only fully reconstitutable in vitro biochemical oscillator. Directions: (1) single-molecule FRET and fluorescence imaging to track conformational states of KaiC ATPase during clock cycles with single-protein resolution; (2) single-molecule reconstitution of the complete KaiA/KaiB/KaiC oscillator; (3) mathematical modeling of biochemical oscillation. Technique focus: single-molecule fluorescence as quantitative biosensing tool for protein conformational dynamics. Joint appointment Microbiology.

Sierecki co-developed the cell-free single-molecule interaction platform with Gambin and runs a group applying it to protein interaction networks: mapping which proteins bind which, with what affinity and in what stoichiometry, at throughput high enough to screen rather than characterise one pair at a time. Recent applications include viral protein-host interactions and transcription factor complexes. Positioned against the established body of NV-ensemble quantum sensing work — DEER, nanoscale NMR and T1 relaxometry protocols operating at pT/sqrt(Hz) field sensitivity — the relevance to a quantum-sensing candidate is as a source of well-characterised, quantitatively-defined biological targets: a pT/sqrt(Hz)-class sensor is only useful in biology if someone can tell you exactly what molecular species is present and at what concentration, which is what this platform delivers. Borderline inclusion — no quantum or physics-instrumentation component — kept because single-molecule technique development is the core of the group.