Sarah Stainer

Sarah Stainer is a PhD student at the Johannes Kepler University Linz (JKU) and is currently finishing her thesis on real-time visualization of highly mobile proteins using high-speed AFM (HS-AFM). During her PhD, she specialized in the imaging of highly mobile proteins, studying their flexibility and conformational changes. She has always been fascinated by the complex workings of cells and wanted to understand their mechanisms at the molecular level.  HS-AFM fascinates her because you can observe very small biological samples such as proteins and DNA and watch their movement in real time. Resolving the features of flexible domains can be challenging using conventional structural determination techniques. HS-AFM can add new information about dynamics and flexibility to protein structures that would otherwise be described by a static representation.

Sarah Stainer

Recent AFM-related papers:

• Bae, J., Bednar, P., Zhu, R., Bong, C., Bak, M. S., Stainer, S., Kim, K., Lee, J., Yoon, C., Lee, Y., Ojowa, O. T., Lehner, M., Hinterdorfer, P., Ruzek, D., Park, S., & Oh, Y. J. (2024). Mechanisms of Plasma Ozone and UV-C Sterilization of SARS-CoV-2 Explored through Atomic Force Microscopy. ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.

• Cisse, A., Desfosses, A., Stainer, S., Kandiah, E., Traore, D. A. K., Bezault, A., Schachner-Nedherer, A. L., Leitinger, G., Hoerl, G., Hinterdorfer, P., Gutsche, I., Prassl, R., Peters, J., & Kornmueller, K. (2023). Targeting structural flexibility in low density lipoprotein by integrating cryo-electron microscopy and high-speed atomic force microscopy. International Journal of Biological Macromolecules, 252(May), 126345.

• Stainer, S., Reisetbauer, S., Ahiable, J. E. A., Ebner, L., Zhu, R., Reindl, D., Körmöczi, G. F., & Ebner, A. (2020). Single molecule distribution of RhD binding epitopes on ultraflat erythrocyte ghosts. Nanoscale, 12(43), 22097–22106.

Biography: Sarah grew up in Salzburg, Austria and studied Molecular Biology in a joint program at the Paris-Lodron University of Salzburg and the Johannes Kepler University of Linz. She was introduced to AFM during her master thesis at the Johannes Kepler University, where she studied the surface pattern of rhesus factor membrane proteins on erythrocyte cells using Topography and Recognition Imaging (TREC). During her master thesis, she applied for a PhD position at JKU and joined the Applied Experimental Biophysics group, specializing in Single Molecule Force Spectroscopy (SMFS), Topography and Recognition Imaging (TREC) and High-Speed AFM (HS-AFM). She spent half a year abroad in Japan as a research visitor to deepen her knowledge in HS-AFM.

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-stainer-b1473b142

Webpage: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sarah-Stainer

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