“Creating a toolbox for the enzymatic modification of alginates”

Alginate currently is the most abundant polysaccharide in use by the medical industry and the number of potential applications is still skyrocketing. Structurally, alginate is composed of only two different monosaccharides, but their ratio and distribution in the polysaccharide greatly influences its biological and physicochemical properties. Still to date, the production of alginates with defined structural properties is prohibitively difficult, which prevents many promising applications to hit the market.

In a currently running project, we aim to produce alginates with defined properties by microbial fermentation and subsequent enzymatic modification.
The advertised master thesis will support our efforts to produce and apply enzymes on the previously produced alginates to tailor their structural composition and properties.
Several enzymes active on alginate will be recombinantly produced, purified and subsequently applied in vitro. The new polysaccharides shall be analyzed upon their structural and physicochemical properties using various analytical methods. Depending on the thesis progress, first tests on the ability of the new polysaccharides to form 3D networks will be investigated too.

You are welcome to apply, if you are motivated for scientific work and curious to learn lots of new things in an interdisciplinary research group.

Start: ASAP Duration: 6 months Salary: ~420€ /month net
Location: IFA Tulln, Institute of Environmental Biotechnology
Contact: gregor.tegl@boku.ac.at