Archive News About the Group

2024

December 2024: Juliane has joined us to support the group as a team assistant. We are super happy to have you and look forward to boosting our productivity with your help!
November 2024: It was great fun to participate in the Long Night of ScienceExternal link in Jena and showcase how pretty our cyanobacteria look under the microscope together with Sabine Arndt and ChembioSysExternal link at the Planetarium. We also had some crafting fun with pearls to make some cyano bracelets with the youngest generation of scientists. Thank you to everyone who was involved!

October 2024: Term starts and the group is growing - welcome to our MSc thesis project student Nils and Sophie, who will support our work as a Hiwi!
September 2024: There were many occasions for cake this month and a lot of changes in the group. Our master students Janine und Nolan finished their lab work and will now write their theses. Our Bachelor student Simon also finished his work and already handed in this thesis - congratulations! Furhtermore we have a new lab member - say hi to Rea, who joins us for her MSc thesis project!

Cake with Cyanobacteria Pattern baked by Simon
Image: MV

Participation at ICRC 2024 (Bielefeld)
Image: JAZZ

25. September 2024: The EXCRETE Workflow Paper for Exoproteomics in Cyanobacteria has now been published in Communications BiologyExternal link Congratulations to the first authors David Russo und Denys Oliinyk!

September 16th – 18th 2024: Next stop was Bielefeld for the 13th International Cebitec Research ConferenceExternal link. This was the first international conference our PhD student Chris participated in. He presented his project in a poster and Julie gave a talk on Sayali's recent findings on metabolic engineering of Synechocystis for pigment biosynthesis (watch out for the preprint!). Again - many familar faces and interesting insights into recent developments in the field of algal biotechnology. We will happily join again in 3 years time!

13. September 2024: The Boehringer Ingelheim FoundationExternal linkwill support our research for 2 years within an Exploration Grant - thanks a lot and we are already looking forward to kicking off the project!

September 3rd – 6th 2024: This month we have been busy attending conferences! The first one was the "12th European Workshop on The Cell Bioloy of Cyanobacteria"External link in Sevilla. Our PhD student Sayali showcased her work on membrane integration of cytochrome P450s in cyanobateria in a poster presentation and Julie gave a talk on our nanofilament technology in cyanobacteria. A very nice conference with many familiar faces that will definitely need to new collaborations!

At the same time, our Master student Janine was joining the MiCom 2024 conference in Jena showing the results of her Master thesis in a Poster presentation.

July, 24th 2024: The book chapter on "Photosynthetic Proteins in Cyanobacteria: from Translocation to Assembly of Photosynthetic Complexes", which is part of the book Endosymbiotic Organelle AcquisitionExternal link (edited by Steven D. Schwartzbach, Peter G. Kroth and Miroslav Oborník) has now been published.
July, 11th 2024: Today the group had good reason to celebrate! Alexandra Schirmacher successfully defended her PhD thesis with the title "Novel synthetic biology approaches for next-generation cyanobacterial cell factories". She is the first PhD graduate from the group (more to come!). Congratulations Alex and great that you will keep working with cyanobacteria!

Group Photo PhD Defense Alexandra Schirmacher
Image: AZ

July, 2nd 2024: Today we welcomed Prof. Daniel Ducat (Michigan State University) and our collaborators Dr. Bin Lai and coworkers (UFZ Leipzig) to our institute seminar. The guest lecture by Danny gave exicing news on carboxysomes and their role in central carbon metabolism. We had many great discussions and new ideas we will definitely follow up on. Thanks a lot for visiting Jena!

Group Photo Visit Danny Ducat in Jena
Image: Alexandra Furch

Conference Attendees 22. Mitteldeutsche Pflanzenphysiologietagung
Image: JAZZ

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.

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.

September 2023: This month we are all busy travelling and networking! Alexandra, Sayali and Miriam are joining the Cyano2023External link meeting in Kassel with a talk and two posters showcasing their work. You can meet Julie at the GASB 7External link in 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 "15^th International Symposium on Cytochrome P450 Biodiversity & Biotechnology" in Copenhagen.

PhD student Sayali at P450 Symposium in Copenhagen
Image: privat

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

2022

December 2022: new preprint from David A. Russo in collaboration with the group to send off the year 2022: Cell surface composition and ionic strength mediate fast sedimentation in the cyanobacteriumExternal linkSynechococcus elongatusPCC 7942External link
December 2022: Unsere Masterstudierenden Theresa und Damian haben ihre Arbeiten erfolgreich eingereicht - wir gratulieren!
September, 28^th 2022: Our PhD student Miriam Verucchi won the poster prize at the "Cyano2022External link–7th Early Career Researcher Symposium on Cyanobacteria" in Leipzig. What a great start for our CRC "ChemBioSys" Project and for her personally as a new PhD student!
September, 15^th2022: Our microdroplets manuscripts has now been published in Scientific Reports. DOI:10.1038/s41598-022-19773-6External link
July 2022: New preprint from our work in collaboration with the Physical Chemistry/ Microreaction Technology Group at TU Ilmenau: Droplet-based microfluidics as a media optimization tool for cyanobacteriaExternal link
March 2022: Our PhD student Alexandra Schirmacher came second in the 3-Minute-Thesis Competition at the FSU 3 Minute Thesis Competition - congratulations! uni-jena.de/en/3MTExternal link

2021

December, 13^th 2021: The preprint is now published in the Journal of Bacteriology. DOI: 10.1128/JB.00504-21External link
October, 9^th2021: A new preprint by David A. Russo et al. about "Development of a highly sensitive luciferase-based reporter system to study two-step protein secretion in cyanobacteria" is out. DOI: 10.1101/2021.10.08.463751External link
September, 14^th 2021:The Cebitec Young Researcher Award 2021 was awarded to Julie Zedler at the 10^thInternational CeBiTec Research ConferenceExternal link.
September 2021: The group has received Seedfunding from the Excellene Cluster Balance of the MicroverseExternal link and will eagerly get to work.
July 2021: We are joining the Collaborative Research Center ChemBioSysExternal link to further strengthen work in the CRC with cyanobacteria. Looking forward to some exciting collaborative research!
June, 26th 2021: Kick-start event iGEM Phototrophs Meetup, check out the break-out session about cyanobacterial transformation, recorded on Youtube hereExternal link
May 2021: the Young Algaeneers Symposium 2021 was a great success! Check out further details hereExternal link

2020

December, 18^th 2020: An introduction to "Cyanobacteria for Biotechnology" I gave at the #Cyano2020 Summer School is now available on Youtube. Check it out hereExternal link.
December, 2^nd 2020: Our MSc Student Sayali Hanamghar received a scholarship from the federal state of Thuringia to continue her work with us as a PhD student – Congratulations!
October, 23^rd 2020: Our review about natural competence in cyanobacteria was published (check out more details under Publications).
October, 9^th 2020: A review article about protein translocation and secretion in cyanobacteria is now online (check out more details under Publications).
Mai, 12^th 2020: Interview about the professorship and our interest: "Leben von Luft und Licht" (this is in German only) Article can be found here.External link