Limited building blocks for active compound development

New Leibniz Research Cluster unites life scientists and engineers

| by Christine Vogler

Logo of the Leibniz Research Clusters

Natural products that are synthesized by microorganisms, fungi and plants are one of the most important source for therapeutics such as antibiotics and cancer drugs. However, producing sufficient amounts of these urgent needed natural products or their precursors poses a major challenge to modern biotechnology. To address this challenge, biologists and chemists turn to methods used by their colleagues from the material sciences - in the Leibniz Research Cluster (LRC), these fields now come together.

On March 12, 2015, the festive Kick-off Meeting of the Leibniz Research Cluster will take place at the Hans Knöll Institute in Jena. At this occasion, Henk van Liempt from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research will present the official granting letters to the directors of the five Leibniz Institutes in the LRC. Furthermore, there will be greetings by the president of the Leibniz Association, Matthias Kleiner, and the president of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Walter Rosenthal. The meeting will be concluded by a tour of the HKI Bio Pilot Plant.

The Leibniz Research Cluster is funded wit 5,5 Mio Euro until 2020 by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research under the Initiative „Nächste Generation biotechnologischer Verfahren - Biotechnologie 2020+“. The following Insitutes are members of the LRC:

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