LOEWE top professorship at the Philipps University of Marburg for evolutionary biologist Dr Georg Hochberg

The federal state programme supports the application for the "Microbes-4-Climate (M4C)" Cluster of Excellence

Evolutionary biologist and Max Planck scientist Dr Georg Hochberg receives a LOEWE top professorship at the Philipps University of Marburg. The state of Hesse is thus supporting the "Microbes-4-Climate" research project in the full application phase as part of the Excellence Strategy of the German federal and state governments. Earlier this year, the project successfully passed the first hurdle on its way to becoming a cluster of excellence. The LOEWE professorship will be funded with about 2.8 million euros from LOEWE funds over a period of five years.

"The nationwide excellence competition is now entering the decisive phase and I am delighted that Dr Hochberg, an internationally renowned expert, is supporting the highly relevant research into microbial contributions to climate change," said Science Minister Timon Gremmels. "Dr Hochberg has done groundbreaking work on the molecular evolution of proteins. His research offers enormous potential for biotechnology applications and has already improved our understanding of protein structures and functions as well as of increasing crop yields."

The climate crisis is essentially caused by a man-made imbalance in the carbon cycle. Microorganisms play a key role in the production and conversion of greenhouse gases. At the same time, they offer opportunities to convert these greenhouse gases into molecules that are harmful to the climate. As part of the Cluster of Excellence project "Microbes for Climate (M4C)", researchers in Marburg want to create the knowledge base for a balanced carbon cycle in the future. Dr Hochberg and his team are investigating how the most important metabolic enzymes for life have evolved. In the absence of molecular fossils, the details of these processes are still unknown. However, understanding them is crucial for the development of new types of enzymes, not least for the conversion of greenhouse gases.

Prof Dr Thomas Nauss, President of the University of Marburg, says: "Georg Hochberg is an outstanding and exceptional scientist who is making significant progress in microbiological research in Marburg. We are delighted that, with the support of the state of Hesse, we have been able to offer this top researcher a perspective at the Philipps University and, with his support, to advance the M4C Cluster of Excellence in our profile-forming research focus "Microbiology, Biodiversity, Climate".

Dr Georg Hochberg has been head of the "Evolutionary Biochemistry" research group at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology since 2019, and is also a junior research group leader at the Centre for Synthetic Microbiology at Philipps-Universität Marburg. After studying biology and completing his PhD at the University of Oxford, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chicago. In 2022 he received an ERC Starting Grant.

With LOEWE Top Professorships, excellent, internationally recognised researchers can receive between 1.5 and 3 million euros over five years to fund their professorship.

LOEWE Start Professorships are aimed at excellent researchers in the early stages of their careers who are to be recruited or retained in the science location of Hessen with funding of up to two million euros over a period of six years.

All information on the LOEWE programme, including the professorships awarded to date, can be found at loewe.hessen.de

Source: LOEWE press release