Rate My Professor Lennart Schada von Borzyskowski

Lennart Schada von Borzyskowski is an Assistant Professor in the Microbial Sciences Cluster at the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL), Leiden University. He earned his undergraduate degree in Applied Natural Science from the Technical University Bergakademie Freiberg in Germany. He completed his PhD in biochemistry and metabolic engineering from ETH Zürich, Switzerland, between 2012 and 2016, under the supervision of Tobias Erb and Julia Vorholt. His doctoral work centered on designing and implementing synthetic metabolic pathways in engineered bacteria for carbon dioxide capture. Subsequently, he undertook a 12-month research visit at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, USA, elucidating the structure of a protein complex implicated in carcinogenesis. From 2016 to 2021, he served as a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg, Germany. During this period, he characterized the β-hydroxyaspartate cycle (BHAC), a novel metabolic pathway facilitating trophic interactions between algae and bacteria in oceans worldwide. He also applied BHAC enzymes to enhance bacterial and plant metabolism for biotechnological purposes, including plastic degradation and improved crop yields.

At Leiden University, Lennart Schada von Borzyskowski leads the SvB Lab, an interdisciplinary team investigating natural and synthetic microbial biochemistry to develop sustainable technologies. The lab employs biochemistry, structural biology, metabolic engineering, and microbial ecology to discover novel biocatalysts and pathways, targeting applications in bioremediation, blue biotechnology, plastic waste breakdown, and antibiotic production to tackle environmental challenges. His research has produced impactful publications, such as 'Implementation of the β-hydroxyaspartate cycle increases growth on C3 and C4 carbon sources in Escherichia coli' (2023), 'A synthetic C4 shuttle via the β-hydroxyaspartate cycle in Escherichia coli' (2021), 'NAD-dependent dehydrogenases enable efficient growth of Paracoccus denitrificans on the PET monomer ethylene glycol' (2025), 'Automated in vivo enzyme engineering accelerates biocatalyst optimization' (2024), and 'Taking Synthetic Biology to the Seas: From Blue Chassis Organisms to Marine Aquaforming' (2023). He contributes to the field as an editor for mSystems and a member of the Early Career Board for ACS Synthetic Biology.