Matthias Heinemann is full professor for molecular systems biology at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Matthias earned his PhD in engineering from the RWTH Aachen University in Germany and mutated into a biologist during his postdoc time at the Institute of Molecular Systems Biology (ETH Zurich). In his research, he aims to understand how primary carbon and energy metabolism functions and how it controls other cellular processes. To achieve this goal, the members of his lab use wet and dry lab approaches of systems biology, in combination with the more classical approaches to biological research, with a particular emphasis on zooming into metabolism of individual cells.
In recent years, his lab has found that cells can measure intracellular flux (i.e. the rate of metabolic activity) and use this information for regulation of other metabolic fluxes, opening up a new view on metabolism (Mol Sys Biol 2010, PNAS 2012). Further, the lab showed that such flux-sensing can lead to bistability in metabolism (Mol Sys Biol 2014), to antibiotic tolerant persisters (Mol Sys Biol 2016), and has relevance for aging in yeast (eLife 2015). Recently, the lab discovered that an upper limit in Gibbs energy dissipation rate governs cellular metabolism (Nat Metabolism 2018) and that metabolism of yeast is an autonomous oscillator (Mol Cell 2017).