Niklas Hielscher successfully defended his MSc thesis

Today, Nilas Hielscher successfully defended his MSc thesis on optimizing bioassays for plant biostimulants, supported by his first and second referees, Bruno Moerschbacher and Dr. Rebecca Melcher from the start-up company Bex-Biotech. Niklas was the first Master student who pursued his Master project externally at Bex-Biotech, “our” most recent spin-off company. Rebecca founded it based on her doctoral research project with us in which she had developed bioassays for ulvans to test their elicitor and priming activities in plant cells and organs. It was her idea to then extend these assays to test for plant biostimulant activities, an upcoming class of agro-biologics with an enormous economic potential mostly based on their outstanding eco-performance. Dr. Tobias Weikert, after obtaining his doctoral degree with us on bioactive chitosans, joint Bex-Biotech to strengthen Rebecca’s team. Niklas now supported them to set up their own research infrastructure at the Technologiehof Münster where the company is now located, by systematically exploring the many impact factors that need to be taken into account when developing robust bioassays that reliably work for different types of potential biostimulants on different crop plant species. This accomplished, he will continue now for a little longer in one of Bex-Biotech’s current R&D&I projects.