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. In the framework of our European research project Nano3Bio, Christoph has worked on chitosan nanoformulations, trying to develop anti-bacterial strategies based on quorum sensing quenching. In the process, he not only developed a new process for chitosan nanoparticle formation yielding particles which are small beyond precedence, he also thoroughly investigated the process of nanogel formation and succeeded in modelling it. He also modelled the interaction of such particles with bacteria, laying the foundation for optimizing the formulations and their application as a replacement or, rather, complement to existing antibiotic treatments. In light of the impending “post-antibiotics” era, alternative strategies to combat bacterial disease are becoming increasingly crucial, and the fundamental understanding offered by Christoph’s work will hopefully be an important step towards such an alternative. Christoph already started his post-doctoral work in the group of Prof. Timo Betz at the Centre for Molecular Biology of Inflammation here in Münster where his computational skills are required.