This year's Jan Peter Toennies Prize in the amount of 1000 € is awarded by the Faculty of Physics of the University of Göttingen to Dr. Steffen Mühle for his outstanding doctoral thesis. "We have developed a method that allows the quantitative determination of mechanical and hydrodynamic properties of individual proteins and their amino acids. Using modern fluorescence microscopy, we measured the nanoscale dynamics of disordered proteins experimentally, and efficiently interpreted the measured data by combining polymer theory and physical simulations. In addition to the above-mentioned material properties, new insights into the motional sequences of the few nanometer long molecule could be gained. In the future, proteins can thus be systematically investigated physically from new perspectives, which contributes to understanding biological processes on the nanoscale," says Steffen Mühle.