Cheminformatics for Microbial Communication — From algal data to a consortium-wide resource

Structure elucidation plays a vital role in chemistry. In metabolomics, linking chemical compounds to biological processes helps test hypotheses about underlying mechanisms. During the initial funding phase, tools for computational metabolomic analysis were developed, resulting in MAW, a pipeline for dereplicating and annotating spectrometric data. Plans are in place to develop additional data pipelines to improve this annotation method. A key focus will be on understanding signaling pathways through stable isotope tracing. As a first case study, marine and freshwater diatom systems are planned for investigation. To promote scientific exchange on signaling compounds and enzyme modifications, efforts are underway to create a Microverse Signaling Atlas that emphasizes the collection and curation of laboratory data from consortium members.

PhD start: 05/01/2026