Research Topics
The major topics currently under investigation in our laboratory are
Research Tools
We use the following tools for our laboratory work:
- modern molecular cloning methods (BioBrick assembly, Gibson & Aqua Cloning, CRISPR interference)
- basic microbiology (culturing and propagation of cyanobacterial strains)
- report-gene activity measurements (fluorescent and luminescent reporter assays)
- resolving DNA topoisomers (CAGE (chloroquine agarose gel electrophoresis))
- RNA analysis (purification, hybridization, Norther Blot, quantitative RT-PCR, RNA-Seq, in-line probing)
- RNA interaction with RNA, proteins, ligands
- recombinant protein expression in E. coli and cyanobacteria
- protein purification and characterization (interaction studies, Western Blot, activity assays)
- continuous culturing of relevant strains in photobioreactors
- metabolic engineering of cyanobacteria
- phenotypic analysis of cyanobacterial mutants
We use the following tools for our computational work:
- In silico cloning with SnapGene
- Data analyses with Python 3 and Jupyter Notebook/Lab
- Data analyses with R and RStudio
- Sequence alignments with BLAST and CLUSTAL Omega
- Flux Balance Analysis with COBRApy
- Containerization with Docker
- In silico evolution experiments with Avida