Bioactive compounds

Microbial interactions are ubiquitous and determine the function and health of natural ecosystems – including humans. Such interactions are fequently determined by bioactivities compounds. Understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying these interactions between microbes and their natural environments opens up unprecedented opportunities for new biotechnological discoveries including new drugs. For this reason, we are interested in marine bacteria that, for one, contribute important metabolic services in their natural ecosystems and, for another, have promising potential for biotechnological or pharmaceutical applications.

Although marine ecosystems make up by far the largest part of the Earth's surface, surprisingly few marine bacteria have been identified and characterized in detail so far. Many of their gene and protein functions and thus their metabolic pathways and adaptation strategies are unknown, even though these microbes determine key processes in the oceans. Therefore, the central objective of our work is to investigate functions and interactions of marine bacteria in the environment and in the laboratory to understand general mechanisms in natural ecosystems on the one hand, and to unlock the promising potential of these microbes for sustainable biotechnological or pharmaceutical applications on the other hand.