Marina Vortmann successfully defended her PhD thesis

Today, Marina Vortmann successfully defended her PhD thesis, supported by her first and second referees, Prof. Bruno Moerschbacher and Prof. Bodo Philipp, and her third, external doctoral committee member, Prof. Volker Wendisch from the University of Bielefeld. Marina’s project was a central part of the collaborative, ‘synthetic biotechnology’ research project F2F which aimed to develop a bacterial consortium for the use of fungal mycelia as a feedstock for the biotechnological production of fine chemicals such as amino acids or dipeptides. Fungal mycelia are accumulating as a waste by-product of the biotechnological production of e.g. technical enzymes or enzymes and additives for food technology. Together with Anna Stumpf from Bodo Philipp’s research group in microbiology, Marina developed the ‘substrate converter’ strain which is able to degrade chitin into glucosamine and acetate, using the latter for its own growth and providing the former as a C- and N-source to a ‘fine chemicals producer’ strain developed by Volker Wendisch’s research group. Dividing the tasks of degradation and biosynthesis to two different bacterial strains lowers the metabolic burden to both of them, and allows to set up a modular system in which different converter and producer strains can be combined, depending on the feedstock available and the targeted product. Marina and Anna collaborated very closely and very successfully in this demanding project, and also with Elvira Sgobba, the third doctoral candidate involved in the project in Bielefeld. The success of the project is largely their success! As one form of appreciation, Marina was baptised by her fellow researchers in our inner courtyard pond, for validate the doctoral degree.