New Bioeconomy Project within the Saarland Research Program

The Research Program (LFFP) promotes the further development of the Saarland as a knowledge and business location. Our new NINA project was selected 2019 as part of this funding initiative.

Specifically, our team will explore the feasibility of using waste streams from the wood industry for biotechnological production. The sustainable use of renewable raw materials for industrial production is one of the strategic research directions for our team. We regard it as production of the future. In the framework of the LFFP project "NINA", we are investigating the use of lignin, one of the world's most important raw materials for industrial production. Specifically, we want to show that microorganisms we have previously developed are capable of utilizing specific aromatic compounds, previously known as waste only burned or used inferior, e.g. as a concrete additive.

Publications from iSBio on that topic:

Becker, J, Wittmann, C (2019) A field of dreams: Lignin valorization into chemicals, materials, fuels, and health-care products. Biotechnol. Adv. In press. (Link)

Becker, J, Kuhl, M, Kohlstedt, M, Starck, S, Wittmann, C (2018) Metabolic engineering of Corynebacterium glutamicum for the production of cis,cis-muconic acid from lignin. Microb. Cell Fact. 17:115. (Link)

Kohlstedt, M, Starck, S, Barton, N, Stolzenberger, J, Selzer, M, Mehlmann, K, Schneider, R, Pleissner, D, Rinkel, J, Dickschat, JS, Venus, J, van Duuren, J, Wittmann, C (2018) From lignin to nylon: Cascaded chemical and biochemical conversion using metabolically engineered Pseudomonas putida. Metab. Eng. 47:279-293. (Link)

Barton, N, Horbal, L, Starck, S, Kohlstedt, M, Luzhetskyy, A, Wittmann, C (2018) Enabling the valorization of guaiacol-based lignin: Integrated chemical and biochemical production of cis,cis-muconic acid using metabolically engineered Amycolatopsis sp. ATCC 39116. Metab. Eng. 45:200-210. (Link)