Martin Bonin successfully defended his PhD thesis: “Subsite occupation and preferences in chitin deacetylases guide their mode of action”

Today, Martin Bonin successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled “Subsite occupation and preferences in chitin deacetylases guide their mode of action”. He was supported by his doctoral committee members Prof. Bruno Moerschbacher, Prof. Toni Planas from the Bioengineering Department of the Ramon Llull University in Barcelona, Spain, and Prof. Dirk Prüfer from our institute. Martin submitted his thesis long ago, but as both of the written reports had evaluated his thesis with “summa cum laude”, a third, external and independent report was needed before the defense could take place. This external review was performed by Prof. Dr. Kathryn Cole from the Department of Molecular Biology and Chemistry at the Christopher Newport University in the USA – and it also ended with judging the thesis “summa cum laude”. Martin successfully defended this best possible mark today. He reported on his in depth biochemical and bioinformatic characterization of two fungal chitin deacetylases which provide new insights into the mode of action of this class of enzymes. The thoroughness and detail of his investigations and his careful consideration of all possible explanations for the results he had obtained allowed him to come up with an improved model for the enzyme-substrate interaction and its implication for the regio-selectivity of the enzymes. This is highly relevant for the understanding and biotechnological uses of chitin deacetylases which are unique and precious tools giving us access to chitosans with different, defined, non-random patterns of acetylation. This only enabled us to verify the crucial importance of this structural aspect of chitosans for their functional diversity. Fortunately, Martin will continue as a post-doctoral researcher in our institute, in the group of Prof. Till Ischebeck, and this will hopefully ease the finalization and submission of two manuscripts from his thesis which are not yet published.