photosynthetic microbes

Junior Professorship Synthetic Biology of Photosynthetic Organisms

photosynthetic microbes
Graphic: JAZZ

Welcome to the website of the junior professorship of synthetic biology of photosynthetic organisms at the Matthias Schleiden Institute!

Our research focuses on developing and utilising synthetic biology principles to improve photosynthetic cell factories. Our interest is to advance photosynthetic host chassis as a sustainable alternative towards biotechnological applications. To achieve this, we are using metabolic and genetic engineering techniques as well as molecular biology and biochemical methods. We are mainly working with cyanobacteria and with the eukaryotic model microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Apart from their plethora of proposed applications, we are also interested in unravelling fundamental cell biological processes (such as protein trafficking). Additionally, we want to gain more insights into the processing of environmental signals in co-cultures and communities of these organisms.

On this website you can find news and information about research and teaching in the group.

Information

Follow us on X (Twitter) for more news: @SynBioJazzExternal link

News from and about the group

Conference Attendees 22. Mitteldeutsche Pflanzenphysiologietagung
Conference Attendees 22. Mitteldeutsche Pflanzenphysiologietagung
Image: JAZZ

2024

  • April 2024: This month, Simon is joining us. He will be completing his BSc thesis with us until the end of the summer. Welcome to the group!
  • February, 23rd-24th 2024: This year we hosted the "22. Mitteldeutsche Pflanzenphysiologietagung" in Jena together with  Alexandra Furch de (Plant Physiology). The whole lab actively participated with oral presentations, posters and as session chairs. We thank the many participants from Halle, Leipzig, Dresden and Jena for a great Meeting. We would also like to thank the German Society for Plant SciencesExternal link, Profillinie Life as well as BioLabTecExternal link for supporting this meeting. We are particularly proud of our MSc student Janine Keller, who won the poster prize. Congratulations! If you want to know more about the conference, you can take a look at the official conference reportExternal link on the DBG website.
Image: DAR
Poster Prize Award Winner
Poster Prize Award Janine Keller
Congratulations to our MSc student Janine Keller for winning the poster prize!
  • January 2024: Thanks to Paul D'Agostino (TU Dresden) for being our guest at the institute seminar. His talk about his work on discovering and expressing cyanobacterial biosynthetic gene cluster was great!

2023

  • December 2023: Our nanofilament paper in cyanobacteria is now published in ACS Nano: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsnano.3c08600External link 
  • October 2023: Happy Halloween! We had some fun carving pumpkins and welcoming new members to the group: two MSc students (Janine and Nolan) and Chris joining us a for a PhD. 
Group Picture AG Zedler October 2023
Group Picture AG Zedler October 2023
Image: DAR
  • September 2023: This month we are all busy travelling and networking! Alexandra, Sayali and Miriam are joining the Cyano2023 External linkmeeting in Kassel with a talk and two posters showcasing their work. You can meet Julie at the GASB 7 External linkin Freiburg at the annual conference of the German Society for Synthetic Biologie.
  • August 2023: We are looking for a PhD student to join our team starting November 2023. More information can be found here.  
  • August 2023: The first corresponding-author paper of Dr. Jan Klein  (Steroid Biosynthesis de, Plant Physiology) about progestogen and androgen biosynthesis in plants was published in the journal New Phytologist. The junir professorship was involved and we say congratulations! The original research article can be found hereExternal link.
  • June 2023: Our PhD student Sayali presented her work on strategies for improving cytochrome P450 expression in cyanobacteria at the "15th International Symposium on Cytochrome P450 Biodiversity & Biotechnology" in Copenhagen.
PhD student Sayali at P450 Symposium in Copenhagen
PhD student Sayali at P450 Symposium in Copenhagen
Image: privat
Visit of Anna Matuszyńska in Jena
Visit of Anna Matuszyńska in Jena
Image: Tobias Pfennig
  • June 2023: Junprof. Dr. Anna Matuszyńska and her PhD student Tobias Pfennig were our guests within the institute seminar. We are looking forward to collaborations and say thank you for a great talk and interesting discussions!
  • June 2023: two papers were published: (1) Cell surface composition, released polysaccharides, and ionic strength mediate fast sedimentation in the cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942. Environ Microbiol. DOI:10.1111/1462-2920.16426External link and (2) the Interlaboratory Study we were a part of: Interlaboratory Reproducibility in Growth and Reporter Expression in the Cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803. ACS Synth Biol DOI:10.1021/acssynbio.3c00150External link.
  • February 2023: new preprint from a long-term collaborative project and our PhD student Alexandra's first research paper in the group: nanofilament assembly in cyanobacteria: Self-assembly of nanofilaments in cyanobacteria for protein co-localizationExternal link

Where can you find us?

Synthetic Biology of Photosynthetic Organisms

Philosophenweg 12
07743 Jena Google Maps site planExternal link

Postal address:
Friedrich Schiller University Jena
Matthias Schleiden Institute
Synthetic Biology of Photosynthetic Organisms

Philosophenweg 12
07743 Jena
Germany