Main Content
Ilka Bischofs-Pfeifer
Bacteria have evolved sophisticated strategies to cope with stress and to adapt to environmental change. Our group studies complex adaptive traits (CATs) in microorganisms at the behavioral and mechanistic level. Our research reveals new traits and aims to understand how the gene regulatory and metabolic network control them, one example being the surprising release of methane from stressed microbial cells. In M4C, we study bacterial adaptation from the molecular to the population level and use this knowledge to facilitate rational manipulations of bacterial populations and the development of programmable microbial chassis.
Research Focus:
Microbes as Responders; Microbes providing Solutions
Key Publication(s):
*Ernst L, Steinfeld B, Barayeu U, Klintzsch T, Kurth M, Grimm D, Dick TP, Rebelein JG, *Bischofs IB, *Keppler F. Methane formation driven by reactive oxygen species across all living organisms. Nature 2022 603:482-487. doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-04511-9
Babel H, Naranjo-Meneses P, Trauth S, Schulmeister S, Malengo G, Sourjik V, *Bischofs IB. Ratiometric population sensing by a pump-probe signaling system in Bacillus subtilis. Nature Communications 2020 11:1176. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-14840-w
