Dr Karin Schütze

// born in 1956, studied ­biology and sports in Heidelberg to become a teacher

// She did her PhD work in the Institute for Applied Physical Chemistry in Heidelberg under supervision of Prof. Horst Ludwig and K.O. Greulich. As a postdoc at the University of California in Berkeley in Prof. Manfred ­Schliwa's lab she assembled her first Optical Trap with the support of Dr Art Ashkin

// She also ­collaborated with Dr Rangaswamy Srinivasan ­appling UV-lasers for cell ablation

// In 1993 she and her husband Raimund Schütze founded the former PALM company

// They were developing and marketing Optical Tweezers and laser microdissection systems for biomedical application

// In 2004 PALM was successfully sold to Carl ZEISS. At Zeiss she worked as Innovation Officer until 2008 when she and her husband founded CellTool GmbH

// Here they focus on engineering Raman systems for biomedical applications and established a service lab for research collaborations and contract research

// In 2006 both received the “Berthold Leibinger Innovationpreis” and were nominated for the ‘Deutscher Zukunftspreis’ of Germany’s Federal President

// She has published 80 ­articles. Her expertise is non-contact cell ­handling and enrichment based on innovative photonic technologies with focus on developing complex photonic systems into easy-to-handle tools

// Her specialty is cell research using ­bio­photonic methods and the development of dedicated ­application protocols