News 2020

A year without Christmas party is like a Christmas tree without family – simply sad. Of course, like everywhere else, our research and teaching were heavily influenced by Corona.
more ...

Today, the main paper of our past “F2F” project was accepted for publication in the journal Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology.
more ...

Today, we learned that the book “Emerging Trends in Plant Pathology ” has finally appeared. In this book, we have published for the first time part of our joint results with the group of our colleague Prof. Jatinder Kumar from the G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology in Pantnagar, India.
more ...

He made it! In spite of travel restrictions in Corona times, Nikolaus visited us as he does each year, to say his thanks for our efforts and successes of the past year.
more ...

Yes, I am surprised myself that we are involved in publishing such a paper. It is the result of our participation in the grEEn project, a NRW Graduate School aiming to make batteries greener, coordinated by the Münster Electrochemical Energy Technology centre MEET.
more ...

Today, a review paper by our doctoral candidate Martin Bonin, our postdoctoral researchers Dr. Sruthi Sreekumar and Dr. Stefan Cord-Landwehr as well as Prof. Bruno Moerschbacher on the enzymatic production of structurally fully defined chitosan oligomers was accepted for publication in the Special Issue on “Complex Carbohydrates and Glycoconjugates: Structure, Functions and Applications” of the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.
more ...

Today, a paper by our former external joint undergraduate student Tamara Limón has finally been accepted for publication in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.
_{more ...}

This Friday, Lea Hembach finally was officially awarded the title ‘Dr. rer. nat.’ Unfortunately, Corona still did not allow us to celebrate her in the Aula of the Schloss, so we could only join her after the ceremony for some cookies and sparkling wine in front of the institute. But Corona or not: Lea was baptised in the institute pond!
_{more ...}

Today, a paper co-authored by our bioinformatician Dr. Ratna Singh was accepted for publication in the journal ‘Pharmaceuticals’.
_{more ...}

Again a good-bye, and again to two people – tough. Today, Elisabeth Seiband, our research technician in three different projects since 2018, and Dr. Eva Regel, who did both her Master and doctoral projects with us, invited the whole group for a farewell party in front of the institute.
_{more ...}

Saying good-bye is always a little sad, having to say it twice is worse, and not being allowed to accompany it with a hearty hug is difficult.
more ...

The third online seminar in preparation of our planned DFG Priority Program on “Chito-Materials in Life Sciences and Technologies - CiLST” was given today by Dr. Linus Stegbauer from University of Stuttgart, on invitation by Prof. Ingrid Weiß.
more ...

Today, Lea Hembach successfully defended her doctoral thesis, supported by her doctoral committee members Prof. Bruno Moerschbacher, Prof. Antoni Planas from Ramon Llull University in Barcelona, and Dr. Christian Gorzelanny from University Hospital Eppendorf in Hamburg.
more ...

Today, Philipp Lemke’s paper describing our first transcriptomic analysis of chitosan-treated plants has been accepted for publication in the Journal “Frontiers in Plant Science”, with Prof. Bruno Moerschbacher as his supervisor and Dr. Ratna Singh as his mentor in bioinformatic analyses as co-authors.
more ...

This Wednesday, Eva Regel was awarded the title “Dr. rer. nat.”, the prestigious title of a Doctor of Natural Sciences.
more ...

Today, Eva Regel successfully defended her doctoral thesis – our first (and hopefully only) full Corona doctor!
more ...

Today, the newly created position for an Assistant Professor of Green Biotechnology at our institute has formally been announced.
more ...

In preparation for a planned DFG Priority Program (Schwerpunktprogramm, SPP) on Chito-Materials in Life Sciences and Technologies - CiLST”, we had today the first online CiLST seminar, organized by the designated CiLST Speaker Prof. Dr. Hans Merzendorfer from the University of Siegen.
more ...

We are happy and proud to learn that our alumna Dr. Mareike Dirks-Hofmeister will be Professor of Food Biotechnology at the nearby University of Applied Sciences in Osnabrück starting this fall.
more ...

Today, part 1 of our review on the pattern of acetylation of partially acetylated chitosans has also been accepted for publication in the “Chitosan for the Future” Special Issue of the journal Reactive and Functional Polymers in honor and memory of George A. F. Roberts and Kjell A. Vårum.
more ...

Today, part 2 of our review on the pattern of acetylation of partially acetylated chitosans has been accepted for publication in a Special Issue on “Chitosan for the Future” of the journal Reactive and Functional Polymers in honor and memory of George A. F. Roberts and Kjell A. Vårum, two eminent chitosan researchers who passed away recently.
more ...

Today, we learned that our first joint paper from the FunCHI project was accepted for publication in the new journal The Cell Surface which is dedicated to research on ‘transkingdom cell wall biology‘.
more ...

Today, we should have been in Norway, but the Corona virus has not allowed this.
more ...

Today, the paper of Xiaofei Qin, who received his doctoral degree already in 2016 from our University, has appeared in the Journal “Bioorganic Chemistry”.
more ...

Today, the website www.pflanzenforschung.de commented in detail on our recent JACS paper in which we described the mono-acetylated chitosan tetramer carrying its acetyl group at its reducing end sugar unit.
more ...

Already on January 3rd, Lea Hembach’s paper on the first ever chitosan deacetylase and its proposed role in the virulence of the human pathogenic fungus Cryptococcus neoformans was accepted for publication in the highly renowned Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA - PNAS.
more ...

Today, we finally received the official approval letter from BMBF, indicating that our German-Norwegian research project LIGNOLIPP on the co-production of valuable lipids and chitosans in Zygomycetes fungi growing on lignocellulose residues from the forestry industry has been granted in the framework of the European research program Bioeconomy in the North.
more ...

Welcome back, Roberta, from 36°C-hot Brazil to luckily sunny and currently not awfully cold Münster. Supported by a fellowship from Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst DAAD, our alumna Dr. Roberta Paulert who is now Professor for Biotechnology at the Federal University of Paraná in Palotina, Brazil, will be in our institute for three months to start a new collaborative research project.
more ...