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M4C Award 2025 for Hai He

Post-doctoral researcher Dr Hai He was presented with the award at the annual SYNMIKRO conference. His work has provided valuable insights into the evolution of metabolic networks in bacteria.

Martina Preiner receives Human Frontiers Science Grant

The head of the Max Planck Research Group ´Geochemical Protoenzymes´ at the Microcosm Earth Center wants to shed light on the first emergence of life in porous rock environments.

Girls`Day at MPI-TM

On April 3, 15 science girls discovered DNA, pipetted with precision and identified microbes.

Minister Kaweh Mansoori visits SYNMIKRO

The city, the university, the Max Planck Institute and the pharmaceutical companies jointly emphasised the importance of Marburg as a research and business hub.

Bacterial Speed Limit

What limits bacterial investment in motility? A team led by Victor Sourjik has investigated this question. Their findings could help us better understand how bacterial strains adapt to different environments, such as the human gut.

Welcome to the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology

Life without microorganisms is simply impossible. Microbes were the first life forms on early Earth. They evolved the ability to capture carbon dioxide and nitrogen, providing life with energy and nutrients. Microbes also invented photosynthesis, brought oxygen to the atmosphere and gave birth to multicellularity and the evolution of higher life. Microbes are more numerous and diverse than all other living organisms and there is no ecological niche that is not covered by them. They live in constant interactions with their environment, affecting health, agricultural productivity, and the climate on a global scale.

Our mission is to understand the function, communication, and interaction of microorganisms with their environment, to describe them with mathematical models, and to modify them with synthetic biological approaches.
We specifically focus on the microbial metabolism of greenhouse gases, the synthesis and function of bioactive natural compounds, cellular communication and regulation networks, as well as their spatial and temporal organization. Our research scale ranges from the atomic level up to global ecosystems.

Together with our two affiliated centers, SYNMIKRO and the Microcosm Earth Center, MPI-TM is one of Europe’s leading Institutes in the fields of Molecular and Synthetic Microbiology, currently hosting more than 300 scientists and students from more than 35 countries.