Prof. Dr. J. Philipp Benz, Holzforschung München, was tenured at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in August 2020. Since 2014, Prof. Benz had been PI of the W2 Assistant Professorship for "Wood Bioprocesses", limited to six years. In May, he successfully completed the final evaluation of the TUM Tenure Track procedure and took over the permanent W3-Associate Professorship for "Fungal Biotechnology in Wood Science".
The research group of Prof. Benz focuses on the mechanisms that allow fungi to decipher the composition of the plant biomass on which they grow and to adapt their metabolism to decompose it efficiently. The knowledge gained from this work is used to enable a more targeted use of fungi in biotechnological applications - e.g. in the course of the utilization of wood and other lignocelluloses in the context of a circular bioeconomy, but also to better understand how rot develops in order to be able to counteract it at an early stage, or how fungi have adapted to their respective ecosystem niches.