December 1, 2023: summa cum laude: the University of Münster honoured Dr. Martin Bonin and all other new doctors who defended their thesis “with highest praise” this year

Today, our alumnus Dr. Martin Bonin was about those new doctors who were invited by our University to be honoured for defending their doctoral thesis this year with "summa laude". Martin had set himself the goal to elucidate structure-function relationships of chitin deacetylases (CDA) in sufficient detail to allow engineering these enzymes to use them for the production of fully defined chitosan oligosaccharides ad libitum. He knew full well that with the currently available, limited knowledge and tools, this would be a mission impossible. But this is how Martin works: achieving the possible by attempting the impossible. And in the process, in fact, pushing the boundaries. And he did. He optimised in silico modelling of the metal-containing enzymes, and he developed in vitro mass spectrometry-based activity screening of mutant libraries of CDA. Using this combination of bioinformatics and biochemistry, he gained a much deeper understanding of these enzymes, allowing more targeted biotechnological uses of CDA and contributing to elucidating their physiological roles in plant and human pathogenic fungi. Following his successful doctoral defence, he continued as a post-doctoral researcher in the group of Prof. Till Ischebeck in our institute, applying his experience to a new class of enzymes. And when Prof. Daan van Aalten from Aarhus University in Denmark, the world's most experienced CDA researcher, contacted us with a specific question, Martin's detailed answers won him an invitation for a post-doctoral research stay in Aarhus! So he will soon leave Münster, and while we will be missing him even more than now already, we are happy to know that he will continue his career in an excellent environment.