• Since 2023: Doctorate at the Chair of Chemistry of Biogenic Resources
• 2020 – 2022: Master’s degree in Chemical Biotechnology, Technical University of Munich
  • Master’s thesis: Cell-free biocatalytic production of alpha-ketoglutarate from galacturonate via an enzymatic cascade reaction, Chair of Chemistry of Biogenic Raw Materials, TU Munich
• 2016 – 2019: Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Jacobs University Bremen
• 09/2018 – 12/2018: Exchange semester, University of Aberdeen

Research

Project name: VIENNA (Vibrio natriegens as a synthetic biology platform)

Project partners: Chair for Microbial Industrial Biotechnology (Prof. Blombach, TUMCS), WACKER Chemie AG

Project description:

Vibrio natriegens is a Gram negative bacterium with the highest growth rate described under laboratory conditions, with a doubling time of less than 10 mins. This extraordinary growth rate has generated a lot of interest in this microbe in the past few years. One of the objectives of my PhD project is to develop a high-yielding cell-free protein expression platform based on Vibrio natriegens – it’s natural capacity for superfast growth should theoretically make it one of the best yielding CFPS platforms and I aim to unlock this potential during my work. This objective will be achieved in close cooperation with the Chair for Microbial Biotechnology who will develop new V. natriegens chassis strains. This part of the project provides a combination of molecular biology and machine learning to develop a high performing in vitro system.

The cell-free protein expression platform will then be used for the expression of enzymes which can be freely mixed together to quickly prototype enzyme cascades at a microliter scale. The overarching objective is to accelerate the creation of high-performing enzymatic routes from substrates to products through cell-free prototyping. This aspect of the project involves enzyme assays and the development of automated workflows to develop a platform suitable for broad range prototyping projects.