Research Theater Performance "How do we develop antibiotics?”
- Date: Jun 23, 2023
- Time: 07:00 PM - 10:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
- Speaker: AG Prof. Bode
- Location: Altes Rathaus, Göttingen
As part of the Max Planck Society's 75th anniversary celebrations, a Science Slam took place on 23 June in Göttingen, where young Max Planck scientists entertainingly presented their research to a broad audience.
Prof. Helge Bode's team from the department of "Natural Products in Organismal Interactions" delighted the audience with a ten-minute research theatre performance from the world of microbes: How is an antibiotic made? The complex world of mega-enzymes and the diversity of products were illustrated with simple means. People became amino acids and bright colours showed the fascinating structure and smooth functioning of microbial factories.
Without what bacteria produce, our lives would be very different. Antibiotics such as penicillin, anti-cancer drugs, drugs for organ transplants - many of these drugs are produced by bacteria and often only slightly modified by chemists in the laboratory.
An important class of microbial natural products are peptides, small proteins produced by non-ribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPS). The name of these mega-enzyme complexes is as remarkable as their function. At the Department of Natural Products in Organismic Interactions at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg, Germany, we have been tracking these mini-factories for some time. To illustrate the complexity of these enzymes, we would like to demonstrate their function in a 'playful' way. Nothing is left to chance and you will see that complex natural products can only be built and broken down when all parts of the enzymes - or all members of a working group - work together.