Molecular Phytopathology and Renewable Resources
AG Prof. Dr. Bruno Moerschbacher
We are an international group of ca. 25 BSc- and MSc-students, doctoral and post-doctoral researchers as well as research technicians, with strong international and interdisciplinary links to partners from Academia and Industry, mainly in Europe, India, South Africa, and Brazil. Many of our research projects are supported financially by the European Union, such as the CARAPAX and NanoBioSaccharides projects in the past and the ongoing PolyModE project, all aiming at understanding structure/function relationships of chitosans. Currently, our main focus is on the discovery, characterization, optimization, and use of novel chitin and chitosan modifying enzymes to understand and improve bio-active chitosans for applications e.g. in plant disease protection or biomedicine. Our most recent European project, ChitoBioEngineering, aiming at a biotechnologial production of chitosans, is supported financially by Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF. Financially supported by Deutsche Forschungs-Gemeinschaft DFG and University Grants Commission UGC of India, we launched, in 2009, the first Indo-German International Research Training Group on Molecular and Cellular Glyco-Sciences MCGS, together with the University of Hyderabad. In 2011, we started the first Indo-German Public-Private Partnership 2+2-project on Copper-Loaded Chitosan-Nanoparticles and Bio-Control Agents for Plant Protection, CuChi-BCA, financially supported by BMBF and Department of Biotechnology DBT of India. And all of our projects profit from financial support by Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst DAAD, often through fellowships for PhD students from abroad, but also through the prePhD modules of the „A New Passage to India“ program.
Positions available
For students
PhD positions
First Indo-German International Research Training Group School Molecular and Cellular Glyco-Sciences
First Indo-German 2+2 Project in Biotechnology: Nanochitosan in Plant Protection
European Industrial Biotechnology ERA-IB project ChitoBioEngineering
Postdoc positions
EU project PolyModE - Polysaccharide Modifying Enzymes
First Indo-German 2+2 Project in Biotechnology: Nanochitosan in Plant Protection
European Industrial Biotechnology ERA-IB project ChitoBioEngineering
Research technicians
First Indo-German 2+2 Project in Biotechnology: Nanochitosan in Plant Protection
European Industrial Biotechnology ERA-IB project ChitoBioEngineering
