Wood Production, Wood Technology, and Biotechnological ... - GWDG

Molecular Wood Biotechnology
to investigate molecular biological processes for new applications of wood and to
invent new, environmentally friendly products within the frame of a sustainable,
multi-functional forest utilisation. Next to a strong application of modern molecular
biological methods in biotechnology, cooperations with related research fields
in university and with practical industry are anticipated and the installation of an
interface between research and teaching. In teaching, input is requested in the
forestry bachelor education (http://www.forst.uni-goettingen.de/studium/
bachelor/einfuehrung.shtml) and in the master programmes “Wood Biology and
Wood Technology” (http://www.forst.uni-goettingen.de/studium/hb/
einfuehrung.shtml) and “International Forestry” (http://www.forst.unigoettingen.de/
studium/tif/intro.shtml).
The potential fields of research cover a wide variety of topics. These include (i)
genetic engineering of trees, (ii) implication of biological wood protection
methods, (iii) environmentally sound manufacture of wood products, (iv) recycling
of refuse from wood industry and used wood and wood products and (v)
biotechnological waste management of liquid and solid substances from the wood
industry and from wood and wood products during and after use. The person
appointed to the chair had the freedom to choose from this wide variety of topics
suitable fields and focal points of research.
Own fields of research
The own research field at the time of appointment to the chair “Molecular Wood
Biotechnology” at the Faculty of Forest Sciences and Forest Ecology of the
Georg-August-University Göttingen was purely in basic research and focused
since 1990 for ten years on developmental processes of the basidiomycete model
fungus Coprinopsis cinerea, at that time called Coprinus cinereus (Kües 2000). White
and brown rot fungi, groups of organisms responsible for wood degradation, are
mostly basidiomycetes (Schwarze et al. 2000; see Chapter 17 of this book). Research
projects on lignocellulose-degrading fungi and their products (enzymes,
metabolites, fruiting bodies) fall into the frame of research topics anticipated for
the chair. Fungal products might be used as tools in industry for improving and
altering wood properties, in manufacture of wood products and in waste management
and recycling. In contrast, fungal products can also be obtained from wood
by conversion of biomass. The idea was therefore to broaden the research on the
inkcap fungus C. cinerea into applied fields and to extend the species range of
studies to various white-rot fungi such as Heterobasidion annosum, Pleurotus ostreatus,
Schizophyllum commune, Trametes versicolor and other Coprinoids (Rühl et al. 2007).
Basic and applied research
Having studied biology at the Ruhr-University Bochum with a focus on botany,
the practical diploma thesis (Kües 1983) dealt with the Mendelian genetic back-
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