People.

I'm a trained microbiologist with a background in applied biology, molecular/environmental microbiology, and bioinformatics. I'm driven by my interest in microbial physiology - how do microbes contribute to planetary health and how can we use them to make our life more sustainable? My group's work is centered around lanthanide-dependent microbial metabolism. My broader research interests include top-down / bottom-up microbial carbon cycling, subsurface microbiology, and metal cycling. For our work we follow an embedded omics approach, combining DNA sequencing-based methods with complementary methods, e.g. analytics and advanced electron microscopy, to tackle research objectives from different angles.

Zander completed his master's in microbiology (MSc.) and PhD (title of the thesis: "The microbial ecology of Protea repens infructescences and the surrounding environment" at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, before moving to the Microbiology Institute of the Czech Academy of Science for a postdoc with Petr Baldrian. During his postdoc he studied the effect of carbon and nitrogen availability on coniferous forest soil microbiomes. Funded by the DFG (CRC 1127 "ChemBioSys"), his research with us is focussed on gaining a better understanding of the structure and function of microbiomes in different environments, using various omics techniques. A particular interest in on microbes involved in the iron cycle.

Linda obtained her bachelor's (BSc.) and master's (MSc.) degree in biogeosciences from Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany. She started working with us during her master's studies and witnessed all the small defeats and victories linked to our lanthanide-related work. In her PhD (funded by the DFG), she is studying the effect of lanthanides on (non-)methylotrophic metabolism in (non-)model microorganisms using transcriptomics and complementary methods such as advanced electron microscopy and analytics.