Piera Wiesinger

I studied Biochemistry (Bachelor) at the Technical University of Munich (Germany) and Chemical Biology (Master) at the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena (Germany). During my Master Thesis I worked at the Max-Planck-Institute for Chemical Ecology (Jena) on key enzymes of the isoprenoid biosynthesis pathway.

I am currently working as a PhD candidate at SLU in Uppsala under the supervision of Gustav Nestor, Mats Sandgren, Jerry Ståhlberg and Maria Westerholm.

Please visit my LinkedIn page for more information about my educational background and orcid and Google Scholar for a list of publications.
 

The demand to reduce the use of fossil resources is high, since they are limited and linked to contribute to global warming. Plant biomass is rich in carbohydrates and can be converted to an array of bioproducts. However, efficient enzymatic conversion of biomass yielding biofuels and biomaterials is still a major challenge. In the industrially applied enzyme cocktails LPMOs are promising candidates regarding their efficiency. However, enzyme-substrate binding and the catalytic mechanism of LPMOs are still not fully understood. In my PhD project I am using NMR spectroscopy with the aim to reveal atomic resolution of LPMOs and their interactions with substrates in solution. 

Teacher in laboratory courses

Fundamentals in Chemistry II: Biochemistry (spring 2024 & 2025)

Organic chemistry with energy applications (spring 2025)

Supervision of Master students:

Nov 2022 – Feb 2023 (co-supervision)

Tuva Vredin - Master Thesis “Interaction with viral structures and antiviral effect of cyanobacterial lectins”

Nov 2023 - June 2023 (co-supervision)

Vijay Kumar Eerati - Master Thesis "13C-labelled sugars for NMR studies to learn how key biomass degrading enzymes work"