Dr. Karl-Heinz Maurer from the Business Development Director of Germany AB Enzymes GmbH, Professor Rolf Schmid from the University of Stuttgart, and Professor Ulrich Schwaneberg from RWTH Aachen University visited TIB and gave lectures titled “New proteases from fungi: application and production aspects”, “Sino-German interactions in biotec R&D - status and perspectives”, and “Steering directed monooxygenase evolution: concepts, lessons and prospects after fifteen years of P450 BM3 evolution” , respectively on June 20 and 21. Principle investigator Chaoguang Tian and Ran Tu of TIB hosted the lectures and the deputy director Dunming Zhu attended these lectures.
Dr. Maurer presented recent progresses of AB Enzymes in screening protease from fungi and its industrial application. He then displayed his prospect in novel protease discovery, protein expressing host exploitation, and enzyme industrialization. Prof. Schmid introduced the recent framework in research and industrialization, as well as the project cooperation between China and Germany. He further illustrated the development of China-Germany organization CLIB2021, an industrial biotechnology cooperation set established by numerous scientific research institutes and companies, and raised a new perspective for facilitating integration of production and research of industrial biotechnology. Taking P450 BM-3 monooxygenase, an important industrial enzyme, as an example, Prof. Schwaneberg presented the improvement and challenge of P450 directional evolution. And his comparative illustration on methodology, catalytic mechanism and rational design of mnooxygenase will provide empirical insight to other industrial enzymes’ engineering reform.
Dr. Karl-Heinz Maurer studied Biochemistry at the University of Tübingen and obtained his doctor degree in 1984. From 1985 to 1986, he was Research Associate at the University of Wisconsin in Madison (WI, USA). Between 1986 and 2010, he worked at Henkel in Düsseldorf (including different affiliated companies like COGNIS and COGNIS Biotechnology), with a focus on corporate research such as a corporate director Biotechnology within the Global R&D of the business unit Laundry and Home Care. Since 2011 he was appointed as Business Development Director at AB Enzymes GmbH (Darmstadt) responsible for new business development and regulatory affairs.
Rolf Schmid graduated in chemistry at the Universities of Munich and Freiburg and obtained his Doctor degree in 1970. After Post-doctoral training in France and in the USA he moved to Henkel Dusseldorf. In 2007, he obtained MBA degree from the University of Reutlingen. Throughout his career, he was involved in activities and projects in Japan and more recently in China. He is Honorary Professor of Nanjing University of Technology. Since 2009, he is coordinator for the Bilateral Cooperations of the State of Baden-Wurttemberg in the field of biotechnology with the State's Asian partners in China and Japan.
Prof. Ulrich Schwaneberg studied chemistry at the University of Stuttgart and received his Doctoral degree in 1999. Then, he moved as post-doctoral fellow to the lab of Prof. Frances H. Arnold at Caltech (USA) for two years. In January 2002, he was appointed as Assistant Professor at the Jacobs University Bremen and promoted in 2006 to the Associate Professor level and founded SeSaM-Biotech GmbH in 2008. In January 2009, he moved to the RWTH Aachen University as Head of the Institute of Biotechnology and was furthermore appointed in 2010 as Director within the DWI research center. Since 2010 he has been appointed as director in the Bioeconomy Science Center representing the RWTH Aachen University in a coordinative bioeconomy research initiative. He has a special interest in method development and tailoring of proteins for industrial biotechnology applications and interactive materials research.
Prof.Karl-Heinz Maurer
Prof.Rolf Schmid
Prof.Ulrich Schwaneberg
