First step towards synthetic CO2 fixation in living cells

Three modules forming a new-to-nature CO2 fixation cycle successfully implemented in E.coli

29-Dec-2023 - Synthetic biology offers the opportunity to build biochemical pathways for the capture and conversion of carbon dioxide (CO2). Researchers at the Max-Planck-Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology have developed a synthetic biochemical cycle that directly converts CO2 into the central building ...

Tobias Erb receives the Leibniz Award 2024

Innovative, interdisciplinary research approach opens up new possibilities for developing technologies to address the global climate crisis

11-Dec-2023 - Prof. Dr. Tobias Erb, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology and Professor at the University of Marburg, has been awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The Leibniz Prize is the most important research award in Germany and ...

Cell-free quest for new antibiotics

A new method combines synthetic biology with artificial intelligence

20-Nov-2023 - The rising resistance of bacteria to antibiotics presents an escalating global health risk. Now, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology have combined synthetic biology and artificial intelligence (AI) to develop a more efficient approach to finding and creating new ...

Electricity driving life

Using a metabolic pathway, energy-rich resources can be produced via the power of electricity

18-Aug-2023 - When nature performs chemical reactions to create energy-rich compounds from simple molecules, it requires energy. So far, it has not been possible to use human-made electricity to drive these biochemical processes. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg ...

Biological machine produces its own building blocks

Researchers have for the first time developed a genome the size of a minimal cell that can copy itself

18-Feb-2020 - The field of synthetic biology does not only observe and describe processes of life but also mimics them. A key characteristic of life is the ability to ability for replication, which means the maintenance of a chemical system. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried ...

Let’s build a cell

Researchers engineer a minimal synthetic cellular system to study basic cell function

24-Jan-2020 - Cells are the basic unit of life. They provide an environment for the fundamental molecules of life to interact, for reactions to take place and sustain life. However, the biological cell is very complicated, making it difficult to understand what takes place inside it. One way to tackle this ...

Otto Hahn Medal for Jaime Agudo-Canalejo

22-Jun-2017 - Im Rahmen der 68. Jahreshauptversammlung der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (MPG), die am 21. und 22. Juni in Weimar, Jena und Erfurt stattfindet, erhält der Nachwuchswissenschaftler vom Max-Planck-Institut für Kolloid- und Grenzflächenforschung die Otto-Hahn-Medaille. Er wird für seine herausragende ...

One lock, many keys

14-Oct-2010 - In order to track down pathogens and render them harmless, the immune system must be able to recognize myriad different foreign substances and react to them. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and the Centre for Biological Signalling Studies BIOSS at the University of ...