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Current members
Here our faculty members give a brief overview on their research and the various methods they employ. If you wish further infos on individual members just click the link in their description.
Bange, Gert
The Bange lab investigates the molecular physiology of microbes and their short- and long-term responses to environmental changes and stress conditions.
Expertise: cellular biochemistry, X-ray crystallography, Hydrogen-Deuterium exchange mass-spectrometry, small angle X-ray scattering, electron microscopy
Becker, Anke
The Becker lab studies the genetics, physiology and cell biology of alpha-proteobacteria with multipartite genomes. Main interests are symbiotic and pathogenic interactions with their eukaryotic host cells as well as evolution and function of bacterial multipartite genome architectures.
Expertise: synthetic microbiology, regulatory networks, microbe-host interactions, genomics and transcriptomics, bacterial genome editing
Bremer, Erhard
The Bremer lab investigates the genetics, physiology and structural biology of osmostress protectant synthesis and transport. Pathway discovery of systems for the catabolism of osmostress protectants.
Expertise: synthetic microbiology, metabolic pathway discovery, gene/function relationships, enzyme biochemistry & crystal structure analysis, function/structure analysis of osmostress-regulated transport systems
Brune, Andreas
Termite guts are tiny bioreactors that convert lignocellulose to microbial fermentation products that fuel the metabolism of the host. The Brune Lab studies the prokaryotic and eukaryotic symbionts, their functional role in digestion, and the ecological and evolutionary relationships of the microbiota in different host groups.
Expertise:phylogenetic analysis, microsensors, high-resolution chromatography, physiological and genomic characterization of isolates and the metatranscriptomic response at the community level
Erb, Tobias J.
The Erb lab studies the biochemistry & synthetic Biology of microbial metabolism with focus on the discovery and design of CO2 fixing enzymes, pathways and microorganisms.
Expertise: synthetic biology, metabolic pathway discovery and design, enzyme biochemistry and enzyme engineering, physiology of CO2-fixing microorganisms (Cyanobacteria, Alphaproteobacteria), mass spectrometry
Essen, Lars-Oliver
The Essen lab studies structure and function of fungal adhesion proteins and photoreceptors.
Expertise: X-ray crystallography, ITC, thermophoreses, fluorecence titration, HDX-MS
Graumann, Peter
The Graumann lab studies dynamic processes in bacteria with a focus on the spatial organization and biochemistry of the cell. Key questions are how bacteria maintain their cell shape, how they regulate and drive their cell cycle and how is DNA is transferred between bacteria?
Expertise: cellular biochemistry, super-resolution microscopy
Kolb, Peter
The Kolb lab uses computational methods to develop a comprehensive understanding of small-molecule:protein interaction profiles in molecular detail and predict ligands with tailored properties for G protein-coupled receptors and kinases.
Expertise: computational docking, chemoinformatic derivatization of molecules, molecular dynamics simulations, structure-based ligand design, database development
Li, Shu-Ming
The main focus of the Li lab is the production of biologically active prenylated indole derivatives in bakers yeast. For this purpose, we characterize and combine different key genes derived from the secondary metabolism of different ascomycetes and yield a high structural variety of the respective products.
Expertise: protein expression in yeast and E. coli, HPLC and LC-MS, NMR and MS of small molecules
Lill, Roland
The Lill group elucidates of the molecular role of cellular monothiol glutaredoxins in iron homeostasis and iron-sulfur protein biogenesis.
Expertise: Yeast genetics and biochemistry, RNAi and CRISPR technology, Biochemical reconstitution of Fe and FeS cluster insertion into purified proteins, Spectroscopy (e.g., UV-Vis, CD, fluorescence, EPR), Dynamic protein interaction studies
Randau, Lennart
The group of Lennart Randau investigates small RNA-guided processes in bacteria and archaea, which include (i) CRISPR-Cas activity, (ii) sRNA regulation and (iii) RNA modification via C/D box s(no)RNAs. Research topics focus on small RNAs and fragmented RNA genes that shape the co-evolution of prokaryotes with viral predators.
Expertise: RNA biochemistry, recombinant ribonucleoproteins, RNA-seq, Bacteriophage assays, CRISPR interference
Sogaard-Andersen, Lotte
Overall we seek to understand how bacteria adapt and differentiate in response to changes in the environment. To this end, the group of Lotte Sogaard-Andersen uses Myxcoccus xanthus as a model organism to understand how bacteria coordinate signalling by nucleotide-based second messengers, motility, intercellular communication and the cell cycle in response to environmental changes.
Expertise: molecular genetics, live cell fluorscence microscopy, in vitro characterization of proteins & protein-protein interactions, electron microscopy, RNA seq, comparative genomics
Sourjik, Victor
The Sourjik Lab is interested in a broad range of topics in quantitative microbiology, using both bacteria (E. coli, B. subtilis) and yeast (S. cerevisiae, S. pombe) as model systems. Our main focus is on quantitative analysis of the spatial organization and real-time functioning of cellular networks.
Expertise: FRET, FRAP, FCS, FACS, Computational modelling
Thanbichler, Martin
The Thanbichler group studies the cell biology of bacterial model organisms, with a focus on morphogenesis, cell division, and chromosome segregation.
Expertise: molecular biology & genetics, fluorescence microscopy (incl. FRAP and FRET), biochemistry, protein interaction analysis (MST, BLItz, SPR)
Waidner, Barbara
The Waidner group elucidates cell cycle, origin and maintenance of the helical cell morphology of the human pathogenHelicobacter pylori.
Expertise: molecular genetics, biochemistry and live cell fluorscence microscopy
