Lennart Schada von Borzyskowski

Postdoctoral researcher on enzyme characterization and enzyme engineering The Faculty of Science / the Institute for Biology is looking for a: Postdoctoral researcher on enzyme characterization and enzyme engineering Vacancy number: 15834   Project description We are hiring...

Please share: I am hiring a postdoc that will work on enzyme characterization and engineering in the frame of the EU consortium project C5.

Read all details here and apply until August 10: www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/vacancies...

Great collaboration with @lennartschada.bsky.social on an #enzyme converting the #plastic component ethylene glycol and to a feedstock chemical for microbes. Offering new ways to use plastic biotechnologically. 🧪

Ecogenomics and functional biogeography of the Roseobacter group in the global oceans based on 653 MAGs and SAGs www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #jcampubs 🌊

This work was largely carried out by Minrui Ren in my group at @unileiden.bsky.social and supported by collaborations with Timo Glatter and @rebeleinlab.bsky.social at @mpimicrobiomarburg.bsky.social and @synmikro.bsky.social as well as Meindert Lamers at LUMC and NeCEN.

This study paves the way towards applications of these enzymes in biocatalysis and metabolic engineering for sustainable production with PET-derived ethylene glycol as feedstock.

We also show that the transcriptional activator EtgR controls expression of the gene cluster. Bioinformatic analysis reveals that the etg gene cluster is widely distributed among bacteria, suggesting a common role of NAD-dependent dehydrogenases in ethylene glycol assimilation.

Using proteomics, we identify a gene cluster that is strongly expressed in the presence of ethylene glycol. We report the functional and structural characterization of EtgB and EtgA, key enzymes encoded by this etg gene cluster.

Ethylene glycol is widely used as monomer of the plastic PET. It is therefore highly relevant as sustainable feedstock for microbial biotechnology. In our new paper in @natcomms.nature.com, we characterize efficient enzymes for ethylene glycol oxidation: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The project is coordinated by @tinadominguez.bsky.social and Henning Kirst at @uco.es and includes my group at @unileiden.bsky.social as well as the teams of Steffen Lindner at Charité, Maria Barbosa at @w-u-r.bsky.social, and Laura Martinelli at INsociety.
Looking forward to working together!

Clever Combination of Synthetic Compartmentalization, Carbon Fixation and Compound Biomanufacturing | C5 | Projekt | Fact Sheet | HORIZON | CORDIS | European Commission The C5 Pathfinder project aims to revolutionize the production of bio-based chemicals by leveraging synthetic compartmentalization and metabolic engineering within photosynthetic cyanobacterial system...

I am happy to share that a joint EIC Pathfinder Challenges project has been funded. The C5 consortium will develop disruptive technology for the sustainable production of isoprene from carbon dioxide.
Stay tuned for more updates and open positions.
cordis.europa.eu/project/id/1...

1/3 Although the issue of releasing GMOs for env bioremediation has been virtually absent of the mainstream scientific literature in Europe/US for >20 yrs, the topic has continued strong in Asia—alas in less fancy/visible journals. Time to revisit the subject in view of new global challenges 💪🏻!

Engineered microbe could clean up persistent oil pollution hotspots Bacterium can break down five hydrocarbon pollutants into harmless compounds

This strain can degrade five recalcitrant pollutants simultaneously and was successfully tested with real-life industrial wastewater!

The study is nicely summarized in an article appearing in @chemistryworld.com, to which I contributed some comments: www.chemistryworld.com/news/enginee...

Bioremediation of complex organic pollutants by engineered Vibrio natriegens - Nature A synthetic biology approach was used to engineer Vibrio natriegens into a strain capable of bioremediating complex organic pollutants in saline wastewater and soils, thereby addressing notable threat...

Genetically enhanced bacteria can potentially become an effective tool for bioremediation in the future. Recently, an exciting breakthrough study about an engineered strain of the marine bacterium Vibrio natriegens was published in @nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

@dirktischler.bsky.social is opening the @vaam-microbes.bsky.social conference 2025 at @ruhr-uni-bochum.de. Looking forward to three days of presentations, posters, and networking!

PhD aminosugar metabolism The Faculty of Science / the Institute for Biology is looking for a :PhD Candidate , Aminosugar metabolism and control of growth and development in bacteriaVacancy number: 15487 PhD project descriptio...

Only one week left to apply for this exciting PhD position, supervised by @gillesvanwezel.bsky.social and me!
Please apply if you are interested in microbial biochemistry and have a solid background in enzymes, metabolic pathways, and bacterial genetics.

www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/vacancies...

Ridgeline chart showing the distribution of global daily air temperature differences from the pre-industrial reference period (1850-1900), for every year between 1940 and 2024. Each individual year resembles a hill, shaded in a darker shade of red and further to the right for warmer years. The trend is clearly towards warmer years, with 2024 standing out as first year above 1.5C.

NEW: 2024 has just been confirmed as the warmest year on record, and the first to breach the 1.5C threshold.

We used a ridgeline (Joy Division inspired) chart to visualise daily temperature anomalies since 1940.

2024 clearly stands out with 100% of its days above 1.3C and 75% above 1.5C.

Here's the Chancellor candidate of the German Greens, Robert Habeck, stating what everyone needs to know. Namely that a strong EU is the best counterweight to authoritarians like Musk and Trump. Which is why they support those parties that want to weaken the EU.
[with English subtitles]

Synthetic Ecosystems: From the Test Tube to the Biosphere The study of ecosystems, both natural and artificial, has historically been mediated by population dynamics theories. In this framework, quantifying population numbers and related variables (associate...

Synbio across environmental scales! By @ricardsole.bsky.social et al. doi.org/10.1021/acss...

High-quality PacBio draft genome sequences of 17 free-living Bradyrhizobium and four related Nitrobacteraceae strains isolated from arid soils in the Santa Catalina Mountains of Southern Arizona. Non-symbiotic Bradyrhizobium are among the most abundant and ubiquitous microbes in bulk soils globally. Despite this, most available genomic resources for Bradyrhizobium are derived from plant-associ...

Not all Bradyrhizobium fix N2! In fact, most that live in soil probably don’t. We isolated a bunch from Arizona soils and found none had N-fixing or nodulation genes. We report their genomes and phylogeny here in an accepted paper at access microbiology! www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

A screenshot of a paper on bioarxiv illustrating the lack of blue sky share button!

Would you like to see @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social add a share to blue sky button?! I know I would! Share this post to let @richardsever.bsky.social @erictopol.bsky.social and others at bioarxiv know!

Which one are you?
Among scientists are collectors, classifiers, and compulsive tidiers-up; many are detectives by temperament and many are explorers; some are artists and others artisans. There are poet-scientists and philosopher-scientists and even a few mystics.
–Peter Medawar

The denitrification ability and #nitrogen metabolism pathway of aerobic #denitrifier Marinobacter alkaliphilus SBY-1 under low C/N ratios doi.org/10.1016/j.sc...

Sign of the times, no more bluebird on the biorxiv engagement tab..

Home - SEVA plasmids - Standard European Vector Architecture Standard European Vector Architecture 4.0 Welcome to the CNB-hosted database and material repository of standard and modular plasmid vectors for (de/re) constructing complex bacterial phenotypes ...

🌐 We just joined Bluesky! SEVA is a free, open-access plasmid repository and an international standard supporting the synthetic biology community. Catch us here! #SynBio ⬇️ seva-plasmids.com

Started creating a synthetic biology starter pack. Still missing many so reply here if I forgot you or someone else.
go.bsky.app/SjfpxTK #synbio

We created a starter pack of the members of our Leiden Early Drug Discovery and Development (LED3) hub. Follow our scientists to hear more about their exciting science:
go.bsky.app/EJByPDg
If you are in LED3 and on bluesky, but not in here, please reply to this.
Our Starter Pack includes:
(1/3)

Action Intent Links | Bluesky Authors, websites, and apps can use action intent links to implement "Share on Bluesky" buttons, or similar in-app actions. Logged-in users will be directed to the corresponding action view in the Blu...

We strongly suggest that academic publishers and other platforms that host research rapidly implement a Share to Bluesky button for their articles. Here's how:

docs.bsky.app/docs/advance...

#AcademicSky #HigherEd #Altmetrics

Join us in building a strong Network of Assistant Professors in the Netherlands!
If you are an Assistant Professor or equivalent in the Netherlands, we invite you to join APNet, a vibrant community created by and for Assistant Professors across the Netherlands. ap-net.nl/register/

Making sustainable biotechnology a reality: joined forces aim to improve biocatalysts Everything biobased: Plastic, medicine and fuel. It seems like a futuristic utopia. But for how long? A collaboration of researchers now proposes an idea to accelerate the development process. By comb...

Thanks to the Institute of Biology Leiden for highlighting our paper: www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/news/2024...

It was really fun to discuss this topic with a team of experts and put our thoughts on paper! We hope that our ideas will support the development of the field, and we look forward to applying this approach ourselves.