L12 Laboratory of Biotechnology

Activity at the department is oriented towards research of the biochemical processes, particularly molecular recognition and signal transduction, and towards the application of modern biochemical, biotechnological, microbiological, biophysical and molecular biological methods to problems, which have potential industrial application in fields such as medicine, pharmacy or biotechnology.

Research topics with application in medicine are molecular mechanisms of sepsis, conformational disease and antimicrobial activity of (lipo)peptides. We are interested in the mechanism of recognition of pathogen associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) at the molecular level where we are employing methods with high resolution such as nuclear magnetic resonance and fluorescence spectroscopy. Research interests include study of metabolic regulation in microorganisms, which are able to excrete a number of useful bioproducts, such as enzymes, organic acids, antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals, as well as recombinant proteins. Department hosts its own Microbial Culture Col lection, with more than 3,000 different strains, with emphasis on extremophiles, which is regularly expanded by new species isolated from their natural environment.