Dr. Manuel Liebeke

My Main Research Interests

The research in my group focuses on the chemical interactions between bacterial symbionts and their eukaryotic hosts. I am convinced Mass Spectrometry based Metabolomics can provide us with a detailed view into the metabolic interactions.
My group develops high-resolution Spatial Imaging Methods for in situ measurements of metabolites in host-microbe systems named spatial metabolomics. 

Research projects

Our major approaches are:

• spatial metabolomics on host-microbe systems 
• Mass spectrometry Imaging on the µm scale
• correlative imaging approaches,
  • e.g. combining MALDI-MSI with FISH to map bacteria
  • 3D scanning approaches like µCT to get 3D anatomy of hosts
• environmental metabolomics
  • marine metabolomics, measure metabolites in seawater
  • tissue extracts of animals, plants and microorganisms directly sampled in the field
  • sediment porewater metabolites
• stable isotope tracer experiments
  
  • following the fate of 13C or deuterated metabolites in symbiotic systems with MS