That was the topic of the lecture, which biology and math teacher Dr. Sven Freibert\u2014a member of Steinm\u00fchle\u2019s Plus-MINT support team\u2014summarized as follows:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The \u201cterrestrial microbiome\u201d plays an enormously important role in the carbon cycle. The sequestration of CO2\u2014including anthropogenic CO2\u2014is carried out almost entirely by terrestrial plants and aquatic microorganisms. The latter are primarily found in the world\u2019s oceans. However, the efficiency of CO\u2082 fixation by microorganisms is not very high. Due to the comparatively high availability of CO\u2082 throughout both the older and more recent geological history, there has been\u2014and continues to be\u2014no evolutionary pressure to significantly improve this efficiency. <\/p>\n
Microbiology\u2014or, more specifically in this case, synthetic microbiology\u2014and, above all, the team led by Prof. Dr. Tobias Erb has now made this \u201cproblem\u201d of efficiency the focus of its research. The goal is to use microbiological, genetic, and biochemical methods to identify and isolate metabolic pathways in microorganisms and increase their efficiency, with the ultimate aim of using these molecular machines for artificial CO\u2082 fixation. It should be noted, however, that the goal is not to release artificially produced microorganisms! <\/p>\n
Another approach being pursued by Prof. Erb\u2019s team is to genetically modify crops that are grown in large quantities so that these plants can fix CO2 more efficiently. This would have the dual advantage of removing large amounts of anthropogenic CO\u2082 from the atmosphere and enabling the plants to grow significantly faster, which in turn would make food much more readily available and thus contribute to global food security. \u201cKilling two birds with one stone\u201d! <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The audience’s full attention<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s not usually the case that an audience listens spellbound to a speaker from start to finish. Tobias Erb managed to hold the audience\u2019s full attention throughout his nearly 45-minute presentation. He struck the right balance between technical expertise and clarity, and during the subsequent Q&A session\u2014which lasted about 30 minutes\u2014it became clear that he had truly engaged the audience with his content. <\/p>\n In closing, Erb expressly praised the keen interest shown by the Steinm\u00fchlen students as well as the quality of their questions.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Speaker Sparked Interest in Research<\/strong><\/p>\n Professor Erb began by introducing the Max Planck Institute in Marburg as one of a total of 86 Max Planck Institutes. He highlighted the quality of the research, which is evident not least in the numerous awards, including several Nobel Prizes. The scientist highlighted the work of the international research teams and sparked an interest in scientific research. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Central Hesse Student Research Center as the organizer<\/strong><\/p>\n In closing, Steinm\u00fchlen School Principal Bj\u00f6rn Gemmer thanked not only the speaker, Prof. Dr. Tobias Erb, and Dr. Virginia Geisel, the press officer, but also the Central Hesse Student Research Center, which initiated and organized the event. As part of this group, Steinm\u00fchle is hosting four lectures in the \u201cMicrobes@School\u201d lecture series. <\/p>\n (Gem \/ Dr. S. Freib \/ Heinm)<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Conveying complex topics in a way that is tailored to the audience\u2014this is, at best, a skill possessed by professors, lecturers in general, and also by teachers. With this in mind, Bj\u00f6rn Gemmer, principal of Steinm\u00fchle School, expressly praised the Marburg-based biologist and chemist Prof. Dr. Tobias Erb of the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":47134,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[95,85,105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-collaborations-partnerships","category-news","category-stem"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54419,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47131\/revisions\/54419"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260223_161135-773x1030.jpg\")
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