Michael Wittenberg

Position: Master’s student, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Cape Town.

Michael is currently completing his MSc at the University of Cape Town. His research project is investigating microbial dynamics and their host selection in Anemia caffrorum; a seasonally desiccation tolerant resurrection fern. His expertise include metabolomics, metagenomics, plant physiology and microbial isolation and characterization. Michael will spend part of his four month secondment at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology. Here, he will run metabolite extracts from two previous experiments on Xerophyta spp. Specifically, he will run the primary, secondary and lipid metabolite extracts from Michael Edwards and Mamosa Ngcala’s experiments through GC-MS and LC-MS. Furthermore, he will annotate and analyze the resulting secondary metabolite data. Lastly, Michael will spend the remainder of his secondment at the University Potsdam. Here, he will assist in using this resulting metabolomics data in conjunction with the complementary transcriptomes to annotate orphan genes in Xerophyta spp..