Saying good-bye to Elisabeth Seiband and Dr. Eva Regel

Again a good-bye, and again to two people – tough. Today, Elisabeth Seiband, our research technician in three different projects since 2018, and Dr. Eva Regel, who did both her Master and doctoral projects with us, invited the whole group for a farewell party in front of the institute. Elisabeth had joined us first for the FunCHi project in which she analyzed fungal cell walls, then continued in the nanoControl project to produce and characterize chitosan nanoparticles and nanocapsules. She had just started to support the Bio-Fun project with enzyme purifications and activity determinations when she was selected for a new and permanent job – good for her, sad for us. We are losing an excellent colleague who had been productive from day one, had taken over so many duties and performed them meticulously, that it will be difficult to find an adequate successor. This is equally true for Eva who was the expert in our group for chitosanases. She had succeeded in winning her own doctoral fellowship from Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU) to optimize the enzymatic production of chitosan oligosaccharides with plant biostimulant activities, thus bridging the two main activities of our group – enzyme engineering and bioactivity optimization. She defended her doctoral project under Corona rules and then continued to support us a little longer before now focusing full time on creating her future career. - Well, that was the plan, to slowly shrink the group size. It hurts with everyone we lose, but what is an end for us, is a new beginning for them. Now for you, Elisabeth and Eva. So: thank you again for all the good work, for your enthusiasm and your support. We are looking forward to seeing you at this year’s Weihnachtsfeier, how-ever we will have it.