Former Department of Microbiology

The Department of Microbiology, which had been established in 1992 contemporaneously with the Max Planck Institute, was closed on 01 September, 2018, due to retirement of the institute’s director Prof. Dr. Friedrich Widdel.

The researchers in the De­part­ment of Mi­cro­bi­o­logy in­vest­ig­ated the physiology and di­versity of aquatic bac­teria involved in the cycling of car­bon, ni­tro­gen, sul­fur and iron. In­vest­ig­a­tions in­cluded the isol­a­tion of bac­teria and their study un­der defined con­di­tions in the labor­at­ory. Ma­jor pro­jects were, for example, the study of the an­aer­obic de­grad­a­tion of long-lived nat­ural products such as hy­dro­car­bons, and elec­tro-mi­cro­bi­o­lo­gical pro­cesses in the con­text of an­aer­obic biocor­ro­sion of iron.