Dr. Christoph Ratzke is looking for a founding team to build a new startup. He is a microbiologist and biophysicist who leads the Systems Biology of Microbial Communities junior research group at the University of Tübingen’s Interfaculty Institute of Microbiology and Infection Medicine (IMIT) and the Cluster of Excellence “Controlling Microbes to Fight Infections” (CMFI).
ML-designed microbial communities
Most chemicals and materials are still made from fossil resources. Microbial communities can make them from waste instead, if we learn to design and control them. Ratzke wants to build a company around that: designing microbial communities rationally, with machine learning, to replace as much chemistry as possible with biology.
Ratzke is preparing an application to a current challenge of SPRIND, Germany’s Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation, on this topic, which funds selected teams for up to three years.
He is looking for members of the starting team with expertise in one or more of
- High-throughput experimental biology
Building and manipulating microbial communities at large scale
- Mass spectrometry
MS-based metabolite analysis and data handling in high throughput
- Machine learning
Predicting and optimising microbial community function
You would be part of a startup from day one, shape it from the start, and do science with a direct environmental impact. It also means uncertainty, pressure and fast change. These are positions in the company, not academic posts: the goal is a product and a business.
More than a specific skill, Ratzke am looking for people who are proactive and motivated, work independently, communicate well and are good to have on a team. Ideally you have a PhD or postdoc experience.
If the startup is selected in December, work would start in early 2027 in Tübingen.
Interested, or know someone who might be? Write Ratzke a few lines about yourself and why this interests you, ideally by 25 October.