Processes and Methods (incl. Screening)

Recently, many efforts have been made to improve growth and yield of crop plants. CO₂ fixation in plants is primarily catalyzed by the enzyme ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase (Rubisco). The inherent inefficiency of Rubisco necessitates an additional metabolic process termed photorespiration, which results in the loss of carbon and energy. In fact, it has been estimated that plants lose approximately 25% of the fixed carbon due to photorespiration. Despite several attempts to improve ...

The development of the cation channel channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2) from Chlamydomonas reinhardtii by Prof. Ernst Bamberg and his colleagues and its application to light-induced modulation of neurons paved the way for the field of optogenetics.
Over time the light-gated cation channel channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2) has become an indispensable tool in neuroscience. Based on the pioneering work on ChR2 new variants have emerged, differing in their spectrum of light absorption, their kinetic ...

Prof. Kai Sundmacher and co-workers at the MPI for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems developed a novel core-shell catalyst design with a highly active catalyst core surrounded by an inert, low-permeability shell. The new catalyst design leads to an intrinsic heat management that avoids hotspots in strongly exothermic reactions. This allows faster reactor start-up and shut-down and makes the catalysts suitable for rapid load changes in discontinuous processes.

Three novel processes to separate Cl₂ from unconverted HCl in the anode outlet stream of a electrochemical gas-phase reactor were developed at the MPI for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems. The novel processes lead to a higher reaction yield in gas-phase reactor and have an reduced energy demand compared to the Bayer UhDenora state-of-the-art process.

A novel green chemistry process to prepare nanocellulose in efficient, safe and sustainable manner based on the use of eutectic, highly concentrated ionic media is offered.

Fusion Tags Comprising Ubiquitin-like Modifiers and Corresponding Proteases For Protein Purification From Selected Eukaryotic Expression Hosts

The RNA-programmable DNA-endonuclease Cas9 is widely used for genome engineering, where a high degree of specificity is required. Though this is a mechanism well controlled by canonical base-pairing, there is evidence that Cas9 does accept mismatches under certain circumstances.
This might be seen as a threat to precision needed in genome engineering at least in environments where such high precision is ultimately needed and acceptance of mismatches needs to be avoided, e.g.: cellular gene ...

Connectase is an enzyme that fuses target proteins or synthetic compounds via a small recognition tag, using a different reaction mechanism compared to known protein ligases. It prevents side reactions entirely and has absolute specificity, even in highly in complex solutions with minimum concentrations of target molecules.

The CRISPR-Cas system is a powerful tool for site-specific genome editing. It allows for the inactivation or substitution of entire genes. However, most hereditary diseases in humans are caused by single point mutations, the correction of which requires only subtle changes to the DNA. Recently, base editors (BEs) were developed that allow the introduction of selective nucleotide substitutions. A Cas9 enzyme is fused to a nucleobase deaminase catalysing C-to-T mutations (by C-to-U deamination) ...

The LITESEC-T3SS (Light-induced translocation of effectors through sequestration of endogenous components of the T3SS) system represents a novel, fast, specific, and reversible method to control protein secretion into eukaryotic cells, enabling various medicinal and biotechnological applications, such as targeted drug delivery for tumor therapy.

Biological fixation of CO₂ is an important process carried out by plants and several microorganisms, which can be harnessed for sustainable, biobased production of fuels and chemicals. Particularly, the fixation of CO₂ by autotrophic microorganisms such as cyanobacteria and microalgae can be employed for converting CO₂ into value-added products, such as commodity chemicals or fuels. However, the sustainable autotrophic production ...

We offer a new family of cationic ligands, namely N-alkyl/aryl pyridiniophosphines. The ligands can be synthesized through a short, scalable, and highly modular route.

Evaluation of their electronic properties evidenced weak σ-donor and quite strong π-acceptor character when used as ancillary ligands.

We present an extremely sensitive, reliable and fast novel Lysine deacetylase (KDAC) assay, which can be performed in a continuous format. This novel KDAC assay is based on Firefly luciferase harboring an acetylation on an essential active site lysine, incorporated by genetic code expansion.

We furthermore offer a bacterial selection system that can help engineer KDACs. The selection system uses a reporter enzyme inactivated by lysine modifications at an essential active site residue, thereby ...

myNK cells are a novel myeloid NK subpopulation showing a unique expression pattern with the promise to treat obesity-associated pathologies such as cancer and diabetes. They could be detected in several different tumor tissues and a selective targeting of the upregulated myeloid markers might open the door for immunotherapy as a treatment option of certain obesity-associated cancer entities, obesity and diabetes.

Scientists in the group of Atmospheric Chemistry at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz have developed a novel thiosulfate based ozone scrubber to ensure accurate measurements of trace analytes. It is known from the literature that commercial potassium iodide (KI) containing ozone scrubbers can cause errors in the measurement of carbonyl compounds such as aldehydes and ketones due to byproducts formed from the oxidation of KI. Commercial ozone scrubbers based on sodium thiosulfate ...

A computer-implemented method that allows calculating concentration ranges of components within complex networks of biochemical reactions.

The ability of hypervalent iodine compounds to act as electrophilic group-transfer reagents has been extensively exploited during the last several years in a variety of synthetically useful transformations
like cyanations and alkynylations. Now it was found, that novel imidazolium sulfuranes, which are isolobal to I(III) species and also depict the key threecenter four-electron bond motive, can be used as an alternative platform for the development of new electrophilic group-transfer reagents.

Imidazolium ...

An apparatus and method allowing high throughput collection of X-ray diffraction data at room temperature.

We offer the new composite nanomaterial for sodium ion battery cathodes. These carbon-coated nanosized Na₃V₂(PO₄)₃ particles embedded in a highly effective mixed conducting porous carbon matrix can be easily prepared by means of facile soft-chemistry based preparation method with a post heat treatment procedure. The resulting cathodes can be charged and discharged in 6 s with high current density of 22 A/g, deliver the specific capacity of 44 mAh/g and ...