The Team

Postdoctoral Researcher

Sebastian Wenk

Sebastian Wenk

Wenk@...

I studied Molecular Biology at the University of Potsdam before joining the trinational biotechnology master’s program at the École Supérieure de Biotechnologie in Strasbourg. There, I received a double MSc degree in Synthetic Biology and Structural Biology after writing a thesis on the development of DNA Aptamers against post-transcriptionally modified proteins at the MPI for Immunology and Epigenetics in Freiburg.
Following my interest in synthetic biology and biotechnology, I joined the group of Dr. Arren Bar-Even in 2016 to engineer new-to-nature one carbon assimilation routes in Escherichia coli. Over the course of my PhD and the following postdoc, I have acquired a profound understanding of cellular metabolism and have gained vast experience in metabolic engineering of prokaryotes.

Due to the sudden demise of Dr. Arren Bar-Even in September 2020, I took over the position of replacement group leader, managing the remaining group to complete ongoing projects.
Steffen Lindner

I have an extensive background in metabolic engineering of prokaryotic organisms. I completed my diploma thesis on polyphosphate metabolism in the institute of biotechnology at the research center Jülich. During my PhD studies, at the institute of molecular microbiology and biotechnology at Münster University, I investigated and engineered the central metabolism of C. glutamicum. I then joined the institute of Genetics of Prokaryotes at Bielefeld University, where I continued my metabolic engineering work, with a special emphasis on alternative carbon sources, sugar transport, glycolysis, and the pentose phosphate pathway. I further engineered C. glutamicum for the production of various compounds of interest. Later, I joined Algenol Biofuels in Berlin, working in strain development of Cyanobacteria.

At Arren’s group I design and implement synthetic pathways for formate assimilation in E. coli, using state of the art metabolic engineering and genome editing techniques.

 

Viswanada Bysani

Viswanada Bysani

Bysani@...

I studied B.Sc. Life Sciences and M.Sc. Biochemistry from Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupathi, India. Later worked as a research fellow at Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bangalore, India. I worked on an academic and industrial collaboration project between Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), Bangalore, India, and JNCASR. I isolated anaerobic microbes and developed butanol-producing bacteria via engineering and process optimization.
Later I joined the Arren Bar-Even group for my Ph.D. in the second half of 2018 and successfully demonstrated the functional Reductive Glycine Pathway in the Yeast system for formate and CO2 assimilation using an engineering and evolution approach. I received my Ph.D. now and am continuing to wrap up publication communication work in Arren’s group at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology. I am writing my grant to explore this work in yeast systems further.

PhD Students

Daniel Bonder

Daniel Bonder

I initially studied Economics at Boston University for my bachelor’s, where I became interested in the great potential of a sustainable bio-based economy powered by synthetic biology. I went on to work at Twist Bioscience and later pursued a postbaccalaureate in Biotechnology at Columbia University. After this, I became a rotation student in the lab of Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier where I partook in different projects centered on the biology and application of CRISPR/Cas systems. There, I studied the role of DNA replication proteins in a non-replicative context using a B. subtilis strain engineered to lose its ability to replicate DNA. I also worked on the innate immune recognition of the human pathogen S. pyogenes. In my last project, I investigated post-transcriptional regulatory mechanisms of type V-A CRISPR systems. 

In Dr. Bar-Even’s group, I am working with Dr. Steffen Lindner focusing on rewiring the metabolism of C. glutamicum in order to couple growth with the production of value added chemicals.
Ari Satanowski

Ari Satanowski

satanowski@...

I studied biology at the Freie Universität in Berlin and at ETH Zürich, where I first came into contact with research on microbial metabolism and its engineering and became fascinated with the field. I joined the Bar-Even lab for my Master Thesis and worked on a project that explored enzyme reversibility and the implementation of carbon fixation pathways in heterotrophic hosts. A brief stay at the lab of Tobias Erb then taught me more about the mechanisms and engineering of enzymes.

I returned to the Bar-Even lab in fall 2019 to start my PhD thesis, which aims to establish in vivo synthetic pathways for the assimilation of CO2 and reduced C1 compounds.
Beau Dronsella

Beau Dronsella

dronsella@...

I am a Biology student from the Freie Universität Berlin and joined the research group of Dr. Arren Bar-Even for my Master's project. After my Bachelor's degree, which I completed with a thesis on oxidative stress responses in plants in the group of Prof. Dr. Baier (FU Berlin), I decided to focus on molecular Biology, Epigenetics and Microbiology for my master studies.

In the group of Dr. Arren Bar-Even, I am exploring and optimizing formatotrophic growth of C. necator
Paul Gomez

Paul Gomez

Gomez@...

I obtained my B.Sc in biology at UNAM in Mexico with a focus on kinetics of pyruvate kinase enzymes. After receiving my Master’s degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at University of Potsdam, I decided to continue my career as a scientist and start my PhD by taking part in a research project involving the implementation and testing of synthetic photorespiration bypasses in E. coli. This project takes place at Dr. Bar-Even’s Lab and Dr. Erb group from MPI-TM in Marburg as part of a long-standing scientific collaboration between the two groups.
Jan Lukas Krüsemann

Jan Lukas Krüsemann

Kruesemann@...

After studying biology at Freie Universität Berlin, I completed my bachelor thesis with Arren Bar-Even. In his lab, I worked on rewiring E. coli’s central metabolism using phosphoketolase and I got fascinated by Arren’s vision of engineering metabolism and his unique character. During my project-oriented MSc in systems biology at ETH Zürich, I participated in the iGEM competition, completed an internship at the Danish biotechnology company Novozymes and performed my master thesis at Cambridge University where I set up a model to simulate a synthetic gene circuit in the green microalgae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. After these diverse experiences, I decided to return to Arren’s lab for my PhD, where I plan to improve synthetic methylotrophy in E. coli.
Despite his untimely demise, I will begin my PhD with the amazing Bar-Even family he founded in Potsdam and work on engineering quinone-dependent alcohol dehydrogenases in E. coli together with Tobias Erb as my supervisor.

 

Master Students

Nicole Dambruin

Nicole Dambruin

dambruin@...

I study Biotechnology at Wageningen University and Research, with a specialization in Molecular and Cellular Biotechnology. My BSc. thesis focused on engineering the organism Clostridium carboxidivorans using CRIPSR. During this project, I became interested in the field of metabolic engineering.
Now, as a MSc. student, I joined the Bar-Even lab to work on my MSc. thesis. This project focusses on the fast-growing organism Vibrio natriegens. We aim to further develop engineering tools for this organism and ultimately achieve formatotrophic growth via metabolic engineering.
 
Jenny Bakker

Jenny Bakker

 

Bachelor Students, Interns & Guests

Shamael Abdullah

Shamael Abdullah

abdullah@...

I am a B.Sc student currently pursuing Bioengineering at Hochschule Rhein-Waal situated in Kleve, Germany. I joined Dr. Bar-Even’s Lab as an intern in mid 2021. The project I am involved with is the engineering of formatotrophic growth in emerging model microbes.

 

Student Worker

Abdelrahman Alnahhal

Abdelrahman Alnahhal

Helen Meusel

Helen Meusel

Maximilian Boinot

Maximilian Boinot

 

Past Members

Tong Wu

Doctoral researcher

Rahma Ute

MSc. student

Dr. Enrico Orsi

Postdoctoral researcher

Dr. Patrick Behrens

Postdoctoral researcher

Dr. Fabian Machens

Postdoctoral researcher

Helena Schulz-Mirbach

Intern

Ravi Shankar Ojha

Intern

Ezgi Yilmaz

Intern

Camillo Iacometti

Intern

Lucia Torregrosa

Intern

Filippo Federici

Master student

Vittorio Rainaldi

Intern

Alberto De Maria

PhD student

Dr. Gabriela Alfaro-Espinoza

Postdoctoral researcher

Masoud Babakhani

Master student

Dr. Armin Kubis

Postdoctoral researcher

Elena Rossini

Master student

Hai He

Postdoctoral researcher

Nestor Giraldo

PhD student

Pauline Kuschel

Bachelor student

Ali Tafazoli Yazdi

Master student

Liliana Calzadiaz Ramirez

PhD student

Zeinoun Awad

Student worker

Megan Sondermann

Student worker

Viktoria Biletskaia

Bachelor student

William Newell

Intern

Dr. Charles Cotton

Postdoctoral researcher

Ravisha Rawal

Student worker

Ezgi Yilmaz

Bachelor student

Theofania Andreadaki

Master student

Dr. Nico Claassens

Postdoctoral researcher

Stijn de Vries

Master student

Ivar de Jong

Master student

Alexandra Müller

Master student

Emmanouil Avtzigiannis

Master student

Marti Munar Palmer

Master student

Melissa Poma

Master student

Tamo Löwe

Bachelor student

Maria Hönick

Bachelor student

Annika Priese

Bachelor student

Selcuk Aslan

PostDoc

Suzan Yilmaz

Master student

Dorian Leger

Bachelor Student

Natalia Giner Laguarda

Master student

Guillermo Bordanaba

Master student

Felicia Bütün

Bachelor Student

Muhammed Andic

Rune Höpers

Diploma student

Marian Dion Dempfle

Master student

Sarah Amina Ahrendt

Master student

Jorge Gonzalez de la Cruz

PhD student

Sara Benito Vaquerizo

Master student

Lukas Friedeheim

Master student

Ari Satanovsky

Master student

Oren Yishai

PhD student

Antje Westendorf

Student worker

Saban Özipek

Student worker

Kimberly Henderson

Intern

Julia Zajac

Bachelor Student

Moritz Dodenhöft

Bachelor Student

Anika Bauer

Bachelor Student

Gabriel Dournes

Master student

Giovanni Scarinci

Master student

Jari Verbunt

Bachelor Student

Alvand Gharib

Student worker

Dr. Christian Edlich Muth

Postdoc and bioinformatician

Lorenz Heck

Student worker

Max Finger Bou

Master student

Sophia Borowsky

Student worker

Sophia Meyer

Intern

Stepan Toman

Intern

Moritz Weresow

Master student

Jan Lukas Krüsemann

Bachelor Student

Patricia Walte

Student worker

Moritz Dodenhöft

Intern

Judith Hartmann

Bachelor Student

Dzmitry Lysh

Intern

Katharina Marx

Bachelor Student

Vincent Blaschke

Studentworker

Mathew Habasque

Master Student

Dr. Hezi Tenenboim

Postdoctoral Researcher

Jost Lühle

Student Worker

Jonas Tietz

Student Worker

Andrew Horcroft

Student Worker

Felix Lohrke

Studentworker

Leander Goldbach

Bachelor Student

Julian Widmer

Bachelor Student

 

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