Synthetic Cell Factories
About
We want to contribute to the understanding of bacterial metabolism and are interested in expanding the biosynthetic capabilities of microorganisms for applied purposes.
We focus on the engineering of Corynebacterium glutamicum and Escherichia coli for the sustainable production of value-added small molecules such as natural products, fine chemicals or pharmaceutical building blocks from biomass and other carbon-rich waste streams.
In addition, we are developing new molecular tools for genome editing and high-throughput screening of metabolite producing bacteria at the single cell level using biosensors and fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS).
Research Topics
Microbial synthesis of aromatic (plant) natural products and other aromatic molecules of biotechnological interest
Substrates from Biomass for a Sustainable Industrial Biotechnology
Development of Transcription Factor-based Biosensors and their Utilization for High-throughput Screening of Microorganisms using FACS
Research activities take place at Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH whereas most teaching activities are conducted at the RWTH Aachen University (Chair of Biotechnology).
SynCells 07/2024
Members
Technicians
PhD students
students
News
November 2024 | Jan attends the Biocat4value conference in Düsseldorf/Germany and gives a talk about the Jülich Biofoundry activities |
September 2024 | Mario successfully defended his thesis at the RWTH Aachen University. Congratulations! |
July 2024 | First biofoundry paper published: “AutoBioTech─A Versatile Biofoundry for Automated Strain Engineering” (https://doi.org/10.1021/acssynbio.4c00298). Congratulations to everybody involed! |
June 2024 | Jan gives a talk as part of the lecture series “Industrial Biotechnology” of the FH Aachen |
June 2024 | Jan gives a talk at the Annual Conference of the Association for General and Applied Microbiology (VAAM) in Würzburg |
May 2024 | Jan gives two talks at the summer school “Short Course in Biocatalysis” at the Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research (CIIMAR) in Porto, Portugal. |
April 2024 | Florian Gätgens joins the group for his doctoral studies. He will work on the efficient utilization of biomass-derived xylose within the graduate cluster AUFBRUCH. Welcome, Florian! |
April 2024 | The graduate cluster for sustainable bioeconomy AUFBRUCH starts! AUBFRUCH is funded by the BMBF as part of the structural transformation of the Rheinische Revier. The graduate cluster brings together the eight key partners of the bioeconomy: RWTH Aachen University, Aachen University of Applied Sciences, the Cluster of Industrial Biotechnology (CLIB), Dortmund University of Technology, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Forschungszentrum Jülich, TH Köln and Hochschule Niederrhein. The combined expertise from biotechnology, chemistry, process engineering, logistics, economics, social sciences and spatial planning is intended to decisively advance the transformation of the Rheinische Revier into a sustainable regional bioeconomy. The Synthetic Cell Factories Group of the IBG-1 is happy to take part in the graduate cluster AUFBRUCH and to contribute to this process. |
March 2024 | Data from our collaborative project with Nicolai Kallscheuer (Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena) on type III polyketide synthases in Planctomycetota published in “Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology” (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-024-13065-x) |
February 2024 | “Automated, model-driven performance screening of a BsGDH-CatIB library in combination with Thompson sampling for decision making” - paper with the group of Marco Oldiges published in “Microbial Cell Factories” (https://doi.org/10.1186/s12934-024-02319-y) |
January 2024 | …and here is Mario´s second paper: “Metabolic engineering of Corynebacterium glutamicum for the production of anthranilate from glucose and xylose“, published in “Microbial Biotechnology” (https://doi.org/10.1111/1751-7915.14388) Congratulations, Mario! |
October 2023 | Mario´s first paper is out! Microbial production of p-coumaric acid with Corynebacterium glutamicum. (https://doi.org/10.1186/s12934-023-02222-y). Congratulations! |
Last Modified: 02.12.2024