Team:RUBochum/Human Practices

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Human Practices

Geoff Williams - Australian Platypus Conservancy

Figure 1: Zoom meeting with Geoff Williams, founder of the APC.

In order to learn more about the platypus and the threats it faces in modern times, we contacted the Australian Platypus Conservancy, which provides data and research, works with government agencies to create better conditions and tries to keep track of how specific platypus populations are doing.
We had the pleasure of meeting with one of the founding members, Geoff Williams.


“The interesting thing about the platypus is that certainly one of the reasons the numbers have declined in many places is a result of the dairy industry. So the project is specifically a good one from the platypus perspective.”
Geoff Williams

One of the problems in Australia is that unfortunately, a lot of the dairy farms are located along rivers because they need large amounts of water.
Often the management is not as good as it should be, which means a number of things happen:

1. a lot of farmers let their livestock come down to the riverbank to drink and in doing so, they trample the banks down, which means that the riverbanks are not as well-suited for the platypus to build their burrows because it's eroding away.
2. That leads to more sediment going into the river which is negative for the platypus because with high sediment content the amount of aquatic invertebrates that are found there is reduced. Because platypuses mainly feed on aquatic invertebrates this leads to a reduction in platypus food.
3. The third factor that comes into play is the pollution that comes from dairy farms and is running off into waterways. This leads to a deterioration of the conditions.

“We have many examples where dairy farming is bad for platypus. Only last week I was looking at an issue in Tasmania, where we have a monitoring program. And over the last years there has been a 25% reduction of the platypus abundance in that section of the river. And it almost totally seems to be related to the development of a new intensive dairy operation upstream of where our study is going on.”
Geoff Williams

Tasmania has traditionally been the best place for platypus populations in Australia, but because of the intense dairy farming developing, it is starting to put Tasmanian platypus populations under a lot more pressure.
There often is a direct conflict between the best interest for the platypus and the dairy farms. The platypus is currently classified as near threatened, which shows that the population has declined. There are certain areas where it has gone down quite dramatically.


“So it's great that it turns out that you not only work on the general issue, but it could also specifically be a benefit for the platypus, when it reduces the amount of dairy activities, so congratulations, it's a great project.”
Geoff Williams



Dr. Michael Krohn - Brain AG/Brazzein


Figure 2: Brazzein meeting screenshot with Dr. Michael Krohn, executive Vice President as well as head of Research & Development at BrainAG.

In order to learn more about brazzein, we contacted “ BrainAG “, a specialist in industrial biotechnology, and got to meet with Dr. Michael Krohn, executive Vice President as well as head of Research & Development.
He taught us the advantages and disadvantages of brazzein, discussed with us how long it would take to get such a product on the market, recommended other firms we should contact and look into, gave us tips for our own career and was all around a great conversationalist.

Dr. Breanna Duffy - New harvest


Figure 3: Meeting with Dr. Brenna Duffy from New Harvest.

To learn more about cellular agriculture and synthetic food production, we met with Dr. Breanna Duffy. We talked about EU regulations on GMOs and how the topic is treated in the US compared to the EU. Another interesting topic was entrepreneurship in the synthetic industry.
We talked about different biotech startups, companies like Clara Foods, Perfect Day and their promotion possibilities. New Harvest showed its importance by doing fundamental research.

Dr. Julia Götsch - Promega


Figure 4: Meeting with Dr. Julia Götsch from Promega.

Upon starting lab work, we took the opportunity to meet up with a representative from Promega: Dr. Julia Götsch, who noticed us because of the German meetup. As they were very interested in our project, we arranged a meeting to talk about it and to discuss possible cooperation in the future.
We had a really nice conversation with her and in addition to some.

Integrated Human Practices

Dr. Thomas Gassler - Pichia pastoris

For further advice on Pichia pastoris we asked metabolic engineering expert Dr. Thomas Gassler for a meeting.

Figure 5: Zoom meeting with Dr. Thomas Gassler talking about Pichia pastoris

During our meeting, we explained our cloning strategy to him and discussed the advantages and disadvantages of extrachromosomal plasmids for recombinant protein expression.
He taught us further advantages of chromosomal integrations and the GoldenPiCS system.
Due to his help, we planned the integration for further expression optimization


Dr. Knut Madden - optimization of Pichia protocols

For optimization of Pichia protocols and general insight into the molecular biology and food industry, we talked to Dr. Knut Madden, the co-founder and principal of biogrammatics.

Figure 6: Zoom meeting with Dr. Knut Madden talking about Pichia pastoris protocols.

We got special insight into the industry and used techniques for the production of food molecules. It was astonishing to hear about the versatile use of yeast expression systems and the difference between European and US law when it comes to GMOs in food. He helped us improve our Pichia competent cells and our transformation rate with biogrammatics protocols. Dr. Madden also mentioned secretion problems with caseins which can be bypassed by coupling the caseins.


Prof. Dr. Julia Bandow - Elucidating the use of MLP

We met with Prof. Dr. Julia Bandow, head of the microbial antibiotics research group at the Ruhr-University Bochum, to talk about the Monotreme Lactation Protein and different ways to test the useability for the food industry.
Due to her help we planned our future experimental design.
She also gave us some tips for our project and scheduling.