Home

On the left of the image is a natural wetland habitat with water and grasses, with a forest in the background. A laboratory apparatus is shown on the right.

New Insights Into Methane Metabolism

A team led by Dr Seigo Shima has discovered that methane producing archaea can reduce their need for nickel in nutrient-poor habitats.

Adrian Bunzel leads new Max Planck Research Group

With his group “Enzyme Design and Evolution”, the biochemist aims to develop technologies that use sunlight to capture CO₂ from the atmosphere.

Maik Wolfram-Schauerte, standing in front of a grey wall

Double award from the Max Planck Society for Maik Wolfram-Schauerte

For his outstanding doctoral thesis, Dr Maik Wolfram Schauerte has been honoured by the Max Planck Society with both the Otto Hahn Medal and the Otto Hahn Award.

Franziska Sendker in her white lab coat in the laboratory.

Triple honours for Franziska Sendker

Dr Franziska Sendker received the Otto Hahn Medal and the Otto Hahn Award from the Max Planck Society (MPG) for her doctoral thesis, conducted in the research group of Prof Dr Georg Hochberg. In spring, she was honoured with the Doctoral Prize from the Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (GBM).

Artistic representation of the interior of a cyanobacteria cell. Round green spheres represent condensates, concentrations of enzymes that fix CO2 during photosynthesis.

Boosting photosynthesis for carbon capture

Two new research groups want to harness the power of light to break down and bind CO₂, in order to make nature's process much more efficient.

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.