Sebastian Götze

Biography

I studied biomedical chemistry at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. During my diploma thesis, which was supervised by Prof. Horst Kunz, I worked on gold catalyzed glycosylations.
Afterwards, I carried out my PhD studies at the Max Planck Institute for Colloids and Interfaces and the Free University of Berlin in the Group of Prof. Peter H. Seeberger. For my work in carbohydrate chemistry and vaccine development I was honored with the 2014 Otto Hahn Medal.
Intrigued to learn more about infection biology and microorganisms I joined the lab of Pierre Stallforth at the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology (Hans Knöll Institute/HKI) to investigate the relationship of bacteria and amoeba on a chemical and genetic level.
After learning much about antibiotics, I also wanted to become acquainted with medicinal and pharmaceutical chemistry to better understand the drug development process. Therefore, I moved to Kyoto University and became a JSPS fellow in the group of Prof. Motonari Uesugi developing small molecules for cell biology.
Afterwards I coordinated grant applications as a scientific consultant at the University Koblenz·Landau and became acquainted with science management.
In 2020 I rejoined the HKI as a senior scientist to conduct and manage a research project in biotechnology and anti-infectives. This exciting project aimed at finding and developing new natural products to combat infectious diseases or to protect crops from pests.
Since the end of 2023 I am a member of the HIPS in Saarbrücken investigating microbial communities for their biosynthetic potential and trying to develop new APIs for different diseases.