Microbial communities underpin many natural and biotechnological processes, yet the principles governing their assembly, stability, and metabolic interactions remain poorly understood. Within the Nanobiome project, we investigate how microorganisms cooperate by constructing defined synthetic microbial communities from well-characterized bacterial model organisms, including Escherichia coli, Vibrio natriegens, and Pseudomonas putida. By engineering amino acid auxotrophs and studying metabolite cross-feeding, we establish controllable model systems that allow us to uncover the molecular and physiological mechanisms driving microbial cooperation and community formation. These bottom-up approaches provide a quantitative framework for understanding how stable microbial communities emerge and function.

To characterize these interactions at systems level, we combine synthetic biology and microbial genetics with state-of-the-art multi-omics approaches, including transcriptomics, metabolomics, comparative genomics, and quantitative ribosome profiling (RiboSeq), complemented by computational modelling and long-term adaptive evolution experiments in laboratory bioreactors. Integrating experimental and computational data enables us to identify the design principles that govern microbial communities and ultimately supports the rational engineering of synthetic consortia for sustainable biotechnological and agricultural applications, including plant-associated microbiomes.

Master position to be filled from late August 2026.

If you are interested in working on this topic for your thesis, please contact me via E-Mail with:

• A list of the modules you would like to complete in our working group (including their duration and an approximate timeline)
• Your CV and transcript of records