News 2019

© EUCHIS

EUCHIS newsletter No. 45 appeared

Today, the 45th Newsletter of the European Chitin Society - EUCHIS has appeared, edited by EUCHIS Secretary Prof. em. Martin Peter. It contains important information about the forthcoming 14th EUCHIS conference which will be organised in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Russian Chitin Society in Kazan, from September 06 to 10, 2020.
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© Hellen Franciane Gonçalves Barbosa

Paper accepted: New series of metal complexes by amphiphilic biopolymeric Schiff bases from modified chitosans: Preparation, characterization and effect of molecular weight on its biological applications.”

Today, the third paper from Hellen Barbosa’s half year doctoral sandwich stay with us in 2017 under the direct supervision of Dr. Maha Attjioui has been accepted for publication in the International Journal of Biological Macromolecules.
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© AG Moe

Nikolaus appears to be happy with us

It is already a tradition that Nikolaus visits us in the night from December 5 to 6, to bring his chocolate-self to each of our team members, as a token of his appreciation of our efforts and successes during the past year. Seems like we pleased him again!
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© MKW 2019

The “Landeslehrpreis NRW”, the Teaching Award of the Land North-Rhine Westphalia, was awarded for the first time

German universities praise themselves for following the principles of Humboldt who emphasized the unity of research and teaching. But unfortunately, good teaching brings little reputation, much less than good research. Universities are ranked according to their research output in terms of publications. Shouldn’t we rather be judged based on the success of our students?
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© Philipp Lemke

Dr. Philipp Lemke: A new Dr. rer. nat. from our group

Another occasion for sparkling wine: Today, Philipp Lemke became Dr. Philipp Lemke. After having successfully defended his doctoral thesis earlier this week, Philipp was awarded the title of Dr. rer. nat., the German equivalent of a PhD in Natural Sciences, by the Faculty of Biology of our University.
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© Naivy Nava

Lena Jünemann successfully defended her MSc thesis

Today, Lena Jünemann successfully defended her MSc thesis on synergistic effects in the antifungal activities of chitosans and commercial fungicides, supported by her first and second referees, Prof. Bruno Moerschbacher and Prof. Dr. Prüfer, from our institute.
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© Naivy Nava

Philipp Lemke successfully defended his PhD thesis

Today, Philipp Lemke successfully defended his PhD thesis, supported by his first and second referees, Prof. Bruno Moerschbacher and Prof. Dirk Prüfer, from our institute, as well as his third doctoral committee member, Dr. Andreas Kortekamp, from the State Education and Research Center of Viticulture, Horticulture and Rural Development (DLR) Rheinpfalz, our collaborator in the smartBioS project.
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© IPPC

UN special report names agriculture and forestry as among the main drivers of global climate change

Only a few months back, the global report on biodiversity of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) of the United Nations identified agriculture as the main culprit for the unprecedented mass extinction we are currently witnessing. And now, the Special Report on Climate Change and Land (SRCCL) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the United Nations again points at agriculture as the main cause for global climate change.
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© Wilfried THOMAS, Service Mer, Station Biologique de Roscoff (CNRS/Sorbonne université)

Paper published: “A marine bacterial enzymatic cascade degrades the algal polysaccharide ulvan”

To say it up front: We do not want to adorn ourselves with borrowed plumes. But we are happy with Prof. Gurvan Michel - who thanks to the Bessel award given to him by the Alexander von Humboldt foundation is currently a member of our group - that his paper on an ulvan degradation locus in the genome of the marine bacterium Formosa agariphila has been accepted for publication in Nature Biological Chemistry.
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© AG Moerschbacher

Mini-Symposium in Hochschule Geisenheim University

This week, we had our yearly mini-symposium of the group, with the Bex-Biotech team as our guests. It had been organized by Rita Weyer, Max Linhorst, and Margareta Hellmann, supported as always by Cordula Kurth. For the first time, the mini-symposium was held at an institute of one of our alumni, Dr. Anne Vortkamp.
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© BMBF/Hans-Joachim Rickel

Germany’s battery production research centre will be established in Münster

Today, Germany’s federal Minister for research and education, Anja Karliczek, published her decision that the new research institute for battery production will be established in Münster, with 500 million Euro of support from the federal government matched by 200 million Euro from the land North-Rhine Westphalia.
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Dr. Marina Vortmann and Dr. Anna Niehues are on their ways

Today, two of our recent doctors said good bye, and we said thank you. Marina Vortmann had worked on the extraction and use of fungal chitin from fermentation waste mycelium in the German ZIM project F2F and in the European ERA-IB project funCHI. Anna Niehues had worked in the funCHI project and in the European FP7 project Nano3Bio, developing computational tools for the mass spectrometric analysis of partially acetylated chitosans and for the in silico modelling of chitin and chitosan modifying enzymes.
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© Martin Peter

Prof. Martin Peter visited us for a seminar

Today, Prof. Martin Peter - founding member, former President and current Secretary of the European Chitin Society EUCHIS, former professor at the University of Potsdam and one of the globally leading chitosan experts - visited us and gave a seminar in our lab meeting.
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© nanoControl

Half-annual consortium meeting of the nanoControl project in Münster

Today, the partners of the nanoControl project financially supported by the ZIM program (Zentrales Innovationsprogramm Mittelstand) of the Federal Ministry for Economy and Energy (BMWi) met in Münster for the half annual consortium meeting, to discuss the results obtained so far, and the plans for the next six months.
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© Sruthi Sreekumar

Sven Basa successfully defended his PhD thesis

Today, Sven Basa successfully defended his PhD thesis, supported by his first and second referees, Prof. Bruno Moerschbacher and Prof. Andreas Hensel, from the Institute for Pharmaceutical Biology and Phytochemistry, as well as his third doctoral committee member, Prof. Jens Leker, from the Institute of Business Administration, the latter two from the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy of our University.
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© U.S. Department of Agriculture

Energy crisis, water crisis, climate crisis, soil crisis

My generation grew up with the notion that energy is the most limiting resource on which humanity depends. Perhaps the most captivating board game we played as children was “Öl für uns alle” in which we drilled oil wells, build oil pipelines, bought oil tankers, sold crude oil to refineries, feared fires in our oil facilities, and despaired about exploding transport costs when the Suez canal was closed because of a war in the Near East.
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© Sarah Prexler

Paper accepted: "Catechol Oxidase versus Tyrosinase Classification Revisited by Site-Directed Mutagenesis Studies"

Today, Dr. Sarah Prexler’s manuscript, co-authored by her Master student Martin Frassek and her supervisors Prof. Bruno Moerschbacher and Dr. Mareike Dirks-Hofmeister, on mutational studies concerning the monophenolase activity of dandelion polyphenol oxidases was finally accepted for publication in the highly reputed journal “Angewandte Chemie”!
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© Sruthi Sreekumar

Christoph Engwer successfully defended his PhD thesis

Today, Christoph Engwer from the ex-Goycoolea group successfully defended his PhD thesis, supported by his first and second referees, Prof. Francisco Goycoolea, now at the University of Leeds in UK, and Prof. Bruno Moerschbacher, as well as his third, external doctoral committee member, Prof. Ioannis Chronakis from Technical University of Denmark in Copenhagen.
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© Gurvan Michel

Prof. Gurvan Michel received the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Prize certificate from the President of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

This week, Prof. Gurvan Michel, CNRS research director at the Laboratoire Biologique de Roscoff in Britanny, France, and currently guest professor at our Institute in Münster, received the certificate for the award of the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Prize of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, at the annual AvH Research Awards Winners Symposium held in Bamberg.
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© Lea Hembach

Marina Vortmann successfully defended her PhD thesis

Today, Marina Vortmann successfully defended her PhD thesis, supported by her first and second referees, Prof. Bruno Moerschbacher and Prof. Bodo Philipp, and her third, external doctoral committee member, Prof. Volker Wendisch from the University of Bielefeld.
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© Gurvan Michel

Round Table Seminar “Protein Biochemistry”

Until last year, Prof. Francisco Goycoolea led the round table seminar on “Food Biochemistry” in our fifth semester undergraduate module Biochemistry, but with him now at Leeds University in UK, we had to come up with a replacement.
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© Sruthi Sreekumar

Patent submitted: “Full Process Control”

Since last year, we are collaborating with altona Diagnostics GmbH in a new ZIM (“Zentrales Innovationsprogramm Mittelstand”) project - “nanoControl - Development of Nanoparticles as Non-Infectious Full Process Controls for in vitro Diagnostics” financially supported by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi).
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© Cordula Kurth

Prof. Tamo Fukamizo from Japan visited us

This week, we have a very distinguished visitor, Prof. Tamo Fukamizo, who recently retired from Kindai University in Nara, Japan, and who is currently a visiting professor at Suranaree University of Technology in Thailand.
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