On 18 June 2024, the Archaea Physiology and Biotechnology group was visited by 14 students from the Sacre Coeur School in Vienna.
The 14-year-old students were the winners of a science fair organized by their chemistry teacher Petra Schwarzecker and her colleague Martin Heinrich-Parcer. The science fair is a project in which students work for several months on a research question that has to be proven experimentally and present their results at the fair, where the winners are chosen by other students, teachers, parents and a jury. The trip to the University Biology Building was the winning prize and the students were able to spend a day in a molecular biology laboratory doing experiments.
The students and their teachers, Petra, Martin and Florian Bausch, were given an insight into the production of bioplastics by archaea. The children listened intently to the explanations of Nico Salas, a master student in the Archaea Physiology and Biotechnology group, who is working with PhD student Walter Hoffman on the scale-up of bioplastic production by methanogenic archaea. They are characterizing and isolating key enzymes in biopolymers production. Together with the students, they went through the entire enzyme purification process, from lysing the E. coli cells expressing the enzymes of interest, to visualizing the purified products on a protein gel. In addition, together with Omaima Khalifa, a master student, and Nika Pende, a post-doctoral researcher, the students observed various methanogenic archaea and their stained DNA under the microscope. All in all, the students had a great time and got a glimpse of what it is like to work in a research lab. Many thanks to Omaima, Nika, Nico and Walter for supervising the students in the lab and to the teachers Petra, Martin and Florian. This excursion was planned by Petra and Nika, who would like to see it become a regular event in the future.
Thank you so much for joining!
