Plant Biochemistry
Bio-interactions and bio-engineering are the central research areas of Plant Biochemistry with focus on cyanogenic glucosides and terpenoids, two important classes of bioactive natural products. Their biosynthesis, regulation, molecular genetics and evolution and biological functions are being studied. The experimental systems used include models as well as important crop plants and heterologous expression in microorganisms and mosses. The knowledge obtained is merged into synthetic biology approaches to design systems enabling light driven chemical synthesis of structurally complex molecules.