Welcome Iza!

"Hello! My name is Izabook Gutierrez. In January of this year I obtained my Master degree in Biotechnology at Santo Tomas University in Santiago de Chile. Due to my enthusiastic curiosity, I was occupied by many activities during my life: nursing, arts, design, botany, among others, but finally I was most fascinated by biotechnology. My ambition as a scientist is to create real solutions for real problems. Driven by the problem of the globally growing plastic pollution, I dedicated my undergraduate thesis to the production of biodegradable plastics, i.e. polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), using microbes. I joined the iSBio to take part in the Ligno-Value project, where I will focus on the production of PHAs in engineered microbes from lignin based aromatics. This is my first experience abroad and I am really grateful to my new colleagues and the whole iSBio team for making me feel home so quickly and helping me throughout this new stage."

Izabook is a Chilenian student, who joined us in spring 2019. She has been educated as a biotechnologist at Santo Tomas University in Santiago de Chile. Izabook will work in the BMBF funded project LignoValue, which exploits microbes to produce value-added checmials from lignin. In the project, we work together with Prof. Ignacio Poblete from Universidad Andres Bello in in Santiago de Chile, with whom Izabook has conducted her bachelor and master projects. Due to this, she can benefit from a rich experience. Izabook, we are really glad that you are part of our team. Hopefully, your time in Saarland makes you keep smiling like you did in the first weeks and you will not miss your pets back in Chile too much.