Microbial Bioengineering Laboratory

About the laboratory

We engineer bacteria and their metabolic and regulatory pathways for biotechnology and educate new generations of microbiologists/bioengineers at Masaryk University. Our long-term ambition is to combine microbiology with molecular biology, biochemistry, and bioinformatics, and work on interdisciplinary projects that contribute to the fundamental knowledge of the microbial systems studied but also have significant application potential.

The main research topic of the laboratory is microbial metabolism and physiology and their engineering for the biotechnological conversion of organic and synthetic waste materials, such as lignocellulosic residues or petroleum-based plastics, into valuable chemicals (biomaterials, biofuels, or pharmaceuticals). The safe and robust microbial strains are used as host organisms for harsh biocatalytic tasks.

For detailed insight into the microbial metabolism and physiology and for more efficient valorization of substrates from waste materials, we modify microorganisms and their biochemical pathways using state-of-the-art methods of synthetic biology, metabolic and protein engineering.