Bert de Groot

Bert de Groot is an Adjunct Professor at the Physics Faculty of Georg-August University, Göttingen, and leads the Computational Biomolecular Dynamics Group at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences. His research integrates computational biophysics, molecular dynamics, and method development to study structure-dynamics-function relationships in proteins, particularly ion and water channels.

• PhD in Biophysical Chemistry, University of Groningen (1998)
• Postdoctoral Fellow, Max-Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry (1998–2003)
• Head of Research Group since 2004
• Adjunct Professor since 2009

His research focuses on protein dynamics, ion channel mechanisms, alchemical free energy calculations, and computational electrophysiology. He develops and applies advanced simulation techniques to study permeation, gating, and selectivity in potassium and aquaporin channels. His group also investigates ubiquitin allostery, amyloid aggregation, and protein-ligand binding for drug design.

The 15 most recent publications highlight a strong trend in computational biophysics, with emphasis on ion channel function, free energy methods, and allostery. His work bridges simulation and experiment, often validating findings with structural and electrophysiological data.

Scientific leadership includes:

• Editorial Board Member, Biophysical Journal (2011–2017)
• Editorial Board Member, PLOS Computational Biology (since 2013)

Bert de Groot advises a team of postdocs, PhD, and Master’s students. His group has received no explicitly mentioned grants in the text, but the sustained research output and infrastructure imply significant funding. He actively contributes to teaching through graduate courses in biomolecular simulations and practicals on free energy calculations and Markov modeling. The group maintains close collaborations with experimentalists in NMR, EPR, and crystallography, and develops software such as the pmx toolkit for alchemical simulations.