Molecular and Applied Biotechnology

Anyone, who enjoys yogurt or a good beer, knows what microorganisms can achieve. The smallest living organisms have been used for centuries to produce foodstuffs. One of the tasks of biotechnology is to turn them into more efficient microbial factories in the future.

The metabolism of microorganisms, for example, is increasingly used to acquire energy from biomass or in the production of tailor-made enzymes or other molecules. On the other hand, targeted disruption of the cell metabolism or the suppresion of propagation can contribute to successfully fighting dangerous microorganisms.

As the interface of biology, chemistry, bioinformatics, and chemical engineering, biotechnology offers an interdisciplinary research platform, which makes microorganisms predictable and able to be used in a controlled matter for certain purposes. The skills that budding biotechnologists acquire at RWTH are likewise diverse. The spectrum ranges from microbiology to genetics to biochemical engineering.