Biologists, biochemists, chemists, computer scientists, physicists, and engineers form an interdisciplinary team with a common aim: the use of microorganisms or isolated enzymes for the synthesis of bio-products from renewable carbon sources.
For thousands of years mankind has employed the metabolism of microorganisms, e.g. for the making of bread, cheese, wine, or beer. However, the enormous potential of microorganisms and enzymes for the synthesis of new bio-products, such as basic or fine chemicals, pharmaceuticals and proteins, from renewables is still not exploited to a large extent.
Research at IBG-1 aims at a detailed molecular understanding of microorganisms and enzymes which are used as biocatalysts and includes approaches of systems biology and synthetic biology. The resulting knowledge and technologies are used for the development of novel resource-efficient and sustainable bio-processes, thereby reducing our dependency on fossil carbon sources, in particular crude oil.
Innovative bioeconomy products and processes need tailored microorganisms. Construction of such microorganisms using genetic engineering is usually labor-intensive, manual lab-work. To change this, two groups of IBG-1, “Quantitative Microbial Phenotyping” and “Bacterial Networks and Interactions” collaborated and developed an automated workflow for microbial strain construction.