Sven Klumpe to start cryo-Electron Tomography lab at IMP and IMBA

The Vienna BioCenter institutes IMP and IMBA will soon host a joint research group headed by Sven Klumpe. The structural biologist will join the two institutes with an innovative double-affiliation to add cryo-Electron Tomography research on “jumping genes” and other fields to the campus.

Sven Klumpe will soon join the Vienna BioCenter.

Mainly a mentor: this is how Sven Klumpe envisions himself in a leadership role for when he will soon start his own lab, jointly hosted at IMP and IMBA. “I always enjoyed freedom in my own career and experienced this as the best way to find motivation,” Klumpe says. “For my lab, I want to use a similar approach and convey this feeling of guided independence: the freedom to explore the beauty of biology with the guidance to receive help and learn from peers to adapt new techniques quickly. I look forward to watching people grow their confidence as they acquire skills and make discoveries.”

Sven Klumpe will join the Vienna BioCenter in April. He is currently a researcher in the lab of Jürgen Plitzko at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried. Klumpe develops and applies in situ structural biology techniques, mainly cryo-Focused Ion Beam milling and cryo-Electron Tomography, to study the structural cell biology of mobile genetic elements called transposons.

“I will gather people from a broad range of backgrounds, which reflects a bit of my own journey,” says Klumpe, who will start recruiting PhD and master students as soon as his equipment will be up and running. “I set off from studying theoretical and computational chemistry, meaning building and simulating enzyme models, and later zoomed in on technology development for structural biology. In my own lab, we will draw from this interdisciplinary spectrum as well. You should find a colourful set of talents from diverse backgrounds in the lab soon.”

Klumpe’s approach to science was shaped by technological progress. For a long time, he had an interest in improving samples in cryo-Electron Tomography, which relies on electron beams that penetrate thin specimens in a range of angles to collect data to build three-dimensional models. The technology, however, was long limited to single cells. In the years since 2018, Klumpe prioritized improving software, hardware, and methodology – constantly pushing the limits of the throughput and range of samples amenable to cryo-ET. Now he thinks that the time has come to turn fully to multicellular organisms and tissues.

Klumpe is particularly interested in the replication cycle of transposons, the mobile genetic elements also nicknamed “jumping genes”, which are in a constant arm’s race with the host’s defence mechanisms.  His model system will be fruit fly gonads. “It is a great system, because we know so much about fruit flies and have many tools to genetically manipulate flies.” In the gonads, certain transposons - potentially originating from viral infections millions of years ago – have adapted mechanisms to replicate in the male and female germline. “It is like molecular archaeology to be able to study these genetic elements that are deeply rooted in the fly’s genome “, Klumpe says “and remnants of similar elements exist in humans, too!” Studying these processes by cryo-ET promises exciting discoveries in cell biological mechanisms. The excitement of putting his technology to a test and driving future technical developments with this system, however, is not the only reason why Sven Klumpe looks forward to his move.

“I think the Vienna BioCenter will be the perfect place for me,” he says. “Cryo-Electron Tomography and the techniques that go with it are broadly applicable to many questions, and I know that the campus is extremely collaborative and sharing. I think there will be many opportunities for working with scientists in other research groups and I am really excited to take a position where so many synergies are in the air.”


About Sven Klumpe

Sven Klumpe studied biochemistry for his undergraduate degree and Master’s at the Technical University of Munich (Germany). After a Master’s thesis in the lab of Wolfgang Baumeister at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, he remained affiliated with this university for his PhD, for which he did research in the lab of Jürgen Plitzko at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried and Martin Beck at the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics in Frankfurt. During his studies, Klumpe spent time at the Biologia Molecular Marina BIOMMAR laboratory (Universidad de los Andes, Colombia) and at the Institut Parisien de Chimie Moleculaire (Sorbonne Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, France). In recognition of his research and academic achievements, Klumpe was presented with a number of awards and honours, including a prestigious fellowship of the German National Merit Foundation.