Bioorganic analytics
The current research of the Pohnert-group takes a highly interdisciplinary approach to understand the nature and role of chemical signals that shape complex microbial communities in aquatic environments. A tool of fundamental importance is comparative community metabolomics, to first identify the signals present in natural interactions. Isolation, spectroscopy and organic synthesis of natural products are combined with transcriptomics, biochemistry, and ecology, with the ultimate goal to understand the basis of community interactions in plankton, groundwater, and biofilm communities.