Anika Jürß successfully defended her Master thesis: “Characterization and optimization of a chitosan-stabilized formulation as a potential biopesticide”.

Today, Anika Jürß successfully defended her Master thesis on the use of chitosan to stabilize emulsions of essential oils in water which may be used as plant protectants, making use of a potentially synergistic action of plant strengthening chitosans and antimicrobially acting essential oils. She was supported by Prof. Bruno Moerschbacher, and by Prof. Till Ischebeck from our institute. The work had been supervised by Dr.Carolin Richter and Dr. Sruthi Sreekumar, with the aim to support them in the foundation of their planned start-up company greEnCAP. Like many other bioactive natural compounds, essential oils are poorly water soluble and thus, need formulation to make them available for the development of bio-based plant protection strategies. Oil-in-water emulsions can rather easily be produced, but they are typically not stable. Coating the oil droplets using the right type of chitosan can stabilize these emulsions and at the same time improve the performance of a plant protectant by its phytostimulatory activity. In parallel to these investigations which included the development of suitable bioassays, Anika also produced a series of chitosan derivatives to further improve their solution properties, and then tested their biological activity as well. This part was supervised by Dr. Stefan Cord-Landwehr who supported her in developing the analytical techniques required. While this research thread is waiting to be picked up by a new student, Anika will keep improving and performing bioassays for us, and this will be continued by Julia Zalder in her master thesis, and by Katharina Eickelpasch working for greEnCAP.