Hannes Dobler

Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation

Papers

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About

Hannes Dobler is a key figure in the development of synchrotron beamline instrumentation for structural biology, with his most cited work focusing on the automation of protein crystallography. His major contribution, detailed in the 2004 paper “Automation of the EMBL Hamburg protein crystallography beamline BW7B” (49 citations), describes the transformation of BW7B—the strongest beamline at the EMBL Hamburg Outstation—into a highly automated, user-friendly facility. By optimizing the beamline’s performance using radiation from a 56-pole wiggler at the DORIS III storage ring, Dobler enabled efficient, high-throughput data collection for protein crystallography, significantly advancing the field. This work laid the foundation for modern automated synchrotron beamlines, reducing manual intervention and accelerating structural studies of biological macromolecules. Dobler’s contributions have had a lasting impact on the structural biology community, making complex experiments more accessible and reproducible. His efforts at EMBL Hamburg exemplify the critical role of beamline automation in enabling cutting-edge research, and his legacy continues to influence the design and operation of synchrotron facilities worldwide.