Team

Univ. Prof. Dr. Diethard Mattanovich

phone: +43 1 47654 79001

email: diethard.mattanovich(at)boku.ac.at

DI Dr. Anna Atanasoff-Kardjalieff

email: anna.atanasoff-kardjalieff(at)boku.ac.at

Marina Ječmenica, PhD MSc

Pichia platform for difficult-to-express protein formats
The production of recombinant pharmaceutical proteins is highly important for global public health. Komagataella phaffii is a widely used host to produce such proteins and therefore represents an important target towards more sustainable, yet economically competitive bioprocesses.
The overall aim of this project is to reduce the timelines in strain development for difficult-to-express, but therapeutically promising protein formats. For this purpose, technologies that allow for rapid and efficient cell and genome engineering will be further advanced.

room no: 01/01

phone: +43 1 47654 79032 / -79142

email: marina.jecmenica(at)boku.ac.at

Simone Bachleitner, PhD

Single-carbon compounds such as methanol and formate are gaining attention as renewable feedstocks, as they are independent of agricultural production and easy to store, transport, and mix with aqueous culture media. While native C1 assimilation pathways are often optimized for growth rather than carbon efficiency, my work aims to redesign these pathways to improve yield and productivity. I develop pathway modules for the conversion of methanol and formate into valuable platform chemicals. These modules will be then combined with synthetic pathway designs for formate assimilation, and their performance will be systematically evaluated. The resulting data will support techno-economic analyses of future C1-based bioprocesses.

room no: 04/52

phone: +43 1 47654-79038, 79045

email: simone.bachleitner(at)boku.ac.at

Michael Baumschabl, PhD

Strain engineering and process optimization to improve recombinant protein expression in K. phaffii
Recombinant protein expression capacities are often limited. Within this project possible bottlenecks will be tackled by strain engineering. By the use of process engineering the use of different carbon sources for recombinant protein expression in K. phaffii will be investigated and a process for large scale applications will be developed.

room no: 04/07.2

phone: +43 1 47654 79038

email: michael.baumschabl(at)boku.ac.at

Ly Nguyen Ngoc, PhD

Pichia pastoris promoter engineering

room no: MUGI / 04/16

phone: +43 147654 79043

email: ly.nguyen(at)boku.ac.at

Dr. Evelyn Carolina Vásquez Castro, MSc

Increasing the carbon efficiency of citric acid production

room no: 04/02

phone: +43 1 47654 79032

email: evelyn.vasquez-castro(at)boku.ac.at

Daniel Ahlheit, MSc

My project investigates on energy metabolism during growth on C1 substates, mainly methanol, in Komagataella phaffii and aims to expand the current knowledge on methylotrophy in this yeast by synthetic biology. It studies growth, subcellular localizations and ATP homeostasis to pinpoint unique characteristics. The main vehicles are overexpression- and CIRSPR/Cas9-Knockout- and SWAP studies. Based on previous findings on the TCA cycle, this project aims to arch over peroxisomes, mitochondria and the cytosol.

room no: 04/07.2

phone: +43 1 47654-79038, 79142

email: daniel.ahlheit(at)boku.ac.at

Miriam Kuzman, MSc.

Grafting the Ribulose Monophosphate Cycle for Methanol Assimilation into Komagataella phaffii.

room no: 04/07

phone: +43 1 47654 79036

email: miriam.kuzman(at)boku.ac.at

Charles Moritz, MSc.

Enzyme engineering and evolution for improved methanol dissimilation in the synthetic autotroph Pichia pastoris

room: 04/07.2

phone: +43 1 47654 79038

email: charles.moritz(at)boku.ac.at

Lisa Sanvito, MSc

Synthetic single carbon assimilation pathways for K. phaffii
Methanol and formate are single carbon substrates (C1) which are gaining increasing interest in biotechnology, as they are independent from agricultural production, easy to store, transport and mix with aqueous culture media. In this project, part of the Cluster of Excellence Circular Bioengineering (COE), I will apply model-driven synthetic pathway designs to enable more energy and carbon efficient C1 assimilation pathways in K. phaffii. 

phone: +43 1 47654-79042

email: lisa.sanvito(at)boku.ac.at

Viktoria Kowarz, MSc.

room no: 04/07

phone: +43 1 47654 79035

email: viktoria.kowarz(at)boku.ac.at

Lisa Lutz, MSc.

room no: 04/07.2

phone: +43 1 47654 79038

email: lisa.lutz(at)boku.ac.at

Gabriele Wilt

General technical support of research group

room no: 04/07

phone: +43 1 47654-79035, 79037

email: gabriele.wilt(at)boku.ac.at

David Hersch

room no: 04/07

phone: +43 1 47654 79037

Gregor Lutz

room no: 04/07

phone: +43 1 47654 79037