Wolfgang Wiechert

About

Wolfgang Wiechert is a pioneering researcher in bioprocess engineering and laboratory automation, whose work has fundamentally transformed how microbial and phototrophic bioprocesses are developed and optimized. His research centers on high-throughput bioprocess development, microbioreactor technology, and the integration of robotics with experimental design to accelerate strain characterization and process optimization. Wiechert's most influential contribution — his 2017 review on microbioreactor systems (176 citations) — established these platforms as indispensable tools combining experimental throughput with rigorous bioprocess monitoring. Building on this foundation, he has championed laboratory automation and robotic workflows to eliminate manual bottlenecks in cultivation experiments, as demonstrated through his mini pilot plant automation work (86 citations) and autonomous stirred tank bioreactor systems. His research extends across diverse biological systems, from industrial workhorses like *Corynebacterium glutamicum* to microalgae for lipid and biofuel production. Particularly notable is his vision for fully autonomous Design-Build-Test-Learn cycles, integrating parallelized microscale cultivation, advanced analytics including mass spectrometry, and adaptive laboratory evolution. Collectively, his body of work has profoundly accelerated the pace of industrial biotechnology research, making rational, data-driven bioprocess development more accessible and reproducible for the broader scientific community.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   Microbioreactor Systems for Accelerated Bioprocess Development

   176 citations · 2017
2. 2
   Bioprocess automation on a Mini Pilot Plant enables fast quantitative microbial phenotyping

   86 citations · 2015
3. 3
   Automation of a Nile red staining assay enables high throughput quantification of microalgal lipid production

   37 citations · 2016
4. 4
   Screening of a genome‐reduced <i>Corynebacterium glutamicum</i> strain library for improved heterologous cutinase secretion

   29 citations · 2020
5. 5
   A framework for accelerated phototrophic bioprocess development: integration of parallelized microscale cultivation, laboratory automation and Kriging-assisted experimental design

   21 citations · 2017
6. 6
   Robotic integration enables autonomous operation of laboratory scale stirred tank bioreactors with model‐driven process analysis

   16 citations · 2021
7. 7
   Robotic workflows for automated long-term adaptive laboratory evolution: improving ethanol utilization by Corynebacterium glutamicum

   15 citations · 2023
8. 8
   Need for speed: evaluation of dilute and shoot-mass spectrometry for accelerated metabolic phenotyping in bioprocess development

   11 citations · 2021
9. 9
   From frozen cell bank to product assay: high-throughput strain characterisation for autonomous Design-Build-Test-Learn cycles

   9 citations · 2023
10. 10
    Generic Protocol for Optimization of Heterologous Protein Production Using Automated Microbioreactor Technology

    9 citations · 2017

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links