Lars M. Blank

Prof. Dr. Lars M. Blank is a Universitätsprofessor and Institute Head at the Department of Applied Microbiology (iAMB) at RWTH Aachen University. He studied Chemical Engineering at TU Dortmund and Biology at Ruhr-University Bochum, completed his PhD at the University of Queensland, and served as a PostDoc at ETH Zurich. His research focuses on microbial metabolism, metabolic engineering, and systems biology to enable sustainable chemical production from renewable carbon sources (biomass, CO₂, plastic) using bacteria, yeast, and fungi.

• Editorial Roles: Associate Editor for journals including Metabolic Engineering and Microbial Biotechnology.
• Research Themes: Rational strain development, biocatalysis, systems analysis of metabolic networks, and circular bioeconomy applications.
• Key Projects: Catalaix, ParaCoquette (developing Paracoccus as a biotechnological platform organism), and collaborations in the Ferm-Factory initiative.