Microbiological work is conducted under sterile conditions in our S1 safety lab. Microorganisms are cultivated on agar plates and in liquid cultivation media. We mainly work with streptomyces strains, but in cooperation projects we also use other bacterial genera such as pseudomonas and staphylococcus. In order to produce and identify new secondary metabolites, different cultivation techniques are utilized.
Analytic methods in our group involve biological and chemical screening techniques, leading to identification of biologically active and inactive substances. Biosynthetic studies of secondary metabolites are performed via feeding experiments using stable isotope labelled precursors. Structure-activity relationships can be derived and synthesis of new derivatives is planned of basis of these experiments.
