Research

Research activities at the department cover the topics, which are briefly described below:

Scale down and High Throughput Technologies

Internal growth control for high cell density cultures

Parallel high cell density shake flask cultures

© Neubauer

New and innovative high cell density culture strategies for microbial shaken cultures are developed on the basis of automatic substrate delivery. Initial solutions have been developed with the Finnish company BioSilta Oy and the University of Oulu and are known as the Enbase® technology.

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Impact of gradients in large scale bioprocesses on the amino acid synthesis in Escherichia coli

Scheme of a scale down reactor

© Neubauer

Due to insufficient mixing in large-scale (mostly industrial) fermentation, inhomogeneities emerge. The impacts of the inhomogeneities can only be observed in laboratory scale, if the large scale conditions are imitated. Therefore, a combination of a stirred tank reactor and a plug flow reactor is applied, which enables the distribution of the culture broth into two compartments were different conditions exist.

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Monitoring

Wireless monitoring of shake flask cultures with SENBIT®

SENBIT® system

© Neubauer

Based on the SENBIT®-technology (presented above) a mobile sensor unit is developed to monitor gradients of various parameters in large scale bioreactors.

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Monitoring of concentration gradients in large scale bioprocesses

Large-scale bioreactor

© Neubauer

Based on the SENBIT^®-technology (presented above) a mobile sensor unit is developed to monitor gradients of various parameters in large scale bioreactors.

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Electrooptical monitoring of bacterial cultures

Cell polarizability spectra in a cultivation

© Junne

If cell suspensions are opposed to an electrical field, the optical character of the suspension changes due to the cell polarizability. This parameter as well as the cell length can be monitored at line and fully automated by applying electrooptics.

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Biocatalysis

Broadening the substrate range of Triosphosphate Isomerase (TIM) by Structure based Directed Evolution

Triosephosphate Isomerase (TIM)

© Neubauer

Directed evolution is a key technology in the field of molecular enzyme engineering. It is widely used to change properties of enzymes. If little is known about structure or catalytic mechanisms of the target enzyme the whole sequence is randomly mutated, or if the structure is known certain areas can be chosen for randomization through rational design. 

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Novel biocatalysts for the preparation of modified nucleosides

Purine nucleoside phosphorylase

© Neubauer

In this project heterologous protein expression and tools of protein engineering will be used to develop new biocatalysts with improved properties, focusing on thermostability and an extended substrate spectrum.

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Nonribosomal Peptide Synthetases (NRPSs)

Non-ribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPSs) are multimodular megaenzymes that produce a wide range of pharmaceutically relevant peptide secondary metabolites in bacteria and fungi. Even though non-ribosomal peptides display a remarkable structural diversity, the mode of action by which they are assembled from NRPSs follows a fundamental logic, with each enzyme module being responsible for the recognition, attachment and incorporation of a single building block into the growing peptide chain.

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Optimization of Molybdoenzyme Expression Through Metabolic Engineering

Molybdenum (Mo) is a trace element required by enzymes catalyzing redoxreactions in the carbon, sulfur and nitrogen metabolism. It is the most abundant trace element in sea water and is found in nature as Molybdate (MoO4-2).

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Expression of Wnt proteins in E. coli

In this project Wnt proteins are expressed in E. coli applying libraries with different vectors for cytoplasmic and periplasmic expression comprising e.g. different fusion proteins enhancing the solubility or different leader peptides, respectively as well as different ribosome binding sites and promoters of different strength. Wnt expression and purification is optimized regarding a high amount of soluble and biologically active protein.

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Biosorption processes

Biosorption on immobilized algea

Macroalgea as sorption matrix

© Bunke

The research group 'biosorption' is focused on the treatment of contaminated waste-water as well as on the separation of valuable compounds out of liquids. A special task is the development of sorptive processes by utilizing biomass.

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Bioprocess design for lipopeptide and polyketide production with Bacillus subtilis

In situ lipopetide process removal

© Glazyrina

In this project, a bioprocess design of high-yield production of lipopeptides and polyketides from Bacillus subtilis cultures with reduced operating costs of downstream processing is developed.

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In situ removal and purification of biosurfactants by automated surface enrichment

Flounder

© Glazyrina

Biosurfactants are removed and separated from complex mixtures by compressing and harvesting the liquid surface layer during several extraction cycles. The automated collection pre-treatment in a custom-built glass body called ‘flounder’ is characterized.

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