Dr. Walter is the Francis S. Collins Collegiate Professor of Chemistry, Biophysics, and Biological Chemistry at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Research in the Nils Walter Lab focuses on non-coding RNA through the lens of single molecule techniques. He is the Founding Director of the Single Molecule Analysis in real-Time (SMART) Center at Michigan. In addition, Walter is the Founding Co-Director for the University of Michigan Center for RNA Biomedicine whose mission is to enrich the university’s intellectual and training environment around RNA Biomedicine. He is currently an Associate Director for the Michigan Post-baccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP).
He received his “Vordiplom” (B.S.) and “Diploma” (Masters) from the Technical University of Darmstadt after performing research with Hans-Günther Gassen [de] on the physicochemical characterization of a protein dehydrogenase enzyme. He is a summa cum laude Dr. Ing. (PhD) graduate from the Technical University of Darmstadt and the Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry where he studied molecular in vitro evolution of DNA and RNA using fluorescence techniques with Nobel laureate Manfred Eigen. For his postdoctoral studies, he turned to RNA enzymes under the guidance of John M. Burke at the University of Vermont.
The Nils Walter Lab studies both non-coding RNA and protein-coding RNAs, and how the former control the gene expression of the latter, using tools from biophysics, biochemistry, cell biology, molecular biology and chemical biology. Most prominently, the lab uses leading-edge single molecule and super-resolution microscopy and single-molecule FRET approaches to probe the diverse functional mechanisms of transcriptional and translational riboswitches, the spliceosome, the RNA silencing and RNA interference machinery, ribozymes, as well as devices from DNA nanotechnology, in vitro and in live cells.