Our Projects

Insect-associated microbes Studying the microbiome of social insects, such as termites, helps to identify new aspects of small-molecule mediated symbiotic relations. At the same time it serves platform to identify new antibacterial and antifungal agents. Read more

Marine microbes Microbes associated with marine invertebrates are well-known to harbor an enormous biosynthetic potential. We combine new bioassays, genome sequencing and mining strategies to identify the encoded secondary metabolites with unique chemical scaffolds and potential pharmaceutical application. Read more

Shell overgrown with H. echiniata

Morphogenic signaling molecules More and more examples show that bacterially produced small molecules contribute to the host’s fitness and development by acting as biological information carrier to maintain and modulate the multilateral interaction network. But fully characterized examples are still rare, and the mode-of-actions of those molecules are often not well understood. Read more

Natural product synthesis Many natural products are only produced in minor amounts and a full structural characterization is nearly impossible. In addition, many pharmaceutically interesting compounds are too toxic and need derivatisation to improve their pharmacological properties. Read more