Bacterial Cell Wall and Glycobiology

Research in my group is located in the intercept between chemistry and biology.

Our major goal is to understand bacteria at the molecular level and our research currently focuses on bacterial cell wall physiology and amino sugar metabolism:
 

• Elucidation of cell wall recycling and amino sugar catabolic pathways
• Identification of novel enzymes acting on peptidoglycan
• Structure and mechanism of enzymes involved in the bacterial cell wall recycling
• Protein engineering and directed evolution of protein function
  
  Some of our current projects are:

• Cellular responses to the antibiotic fosfomycin
• Cell wall recycling metabolism in Gram-negative (Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas sp.) and Gram-positive bacteria (Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus)
• Cell lysis and consumption during cannibalistic growth of Bacillus subtilis
• Cell wall metabolism of the oral pathogen Tannerella forsythia
• Structure and mechanism of MurNAc-6P etherase and MurNAc-1P uridylyl transferase
• WTA catabolism