Quantitative Bioeconomy
About
The aim of the research area Quantitative Bioeconomy is to establish or optimize the utilisation of plants and agricultural or horticultural plant residuals for extraction of plant compounds for bioeconomy. In addition, adaptation mechanisms of the plant to environmental stresse are used to modify plants and their metabolism or their gene expression in a targeted manner.
Research Topics
Plants are a crucial component the human diet. A safe food production must be stabilised against environmental stress and plant dieseases occurring in the actual climate change. In addition, plants produce secondary or special metabolites with various biological properties. Medicinal and aromatic plants are cultivated commercially because of the properties of their secondary metabolites, but also agri- and horticulturally grown plants contain special metabolites.
Secondary plant metabolites are also used in various industries including the cosmetics industry and the pharmaceutical industry. Developing a better understanding of relevant biosynthetic pathways, involved genes and their regulation will help to optimise the utilisation of plants by increasing the amount and the extractability of relevant metabolites. Our knowledge in the plant reaction to environmental stresses enables the utilisation of targeted stress treatments, wich can modify the plants metabolism and also access the gentic program of the plant or its gene expression.