Daniel Bergen

Daniel is a postdoctoral researcher in the Fritz Lab, where he works on model-guided metabolic engineering of Vibrio natriegens for aerobic syngas conversion. His research combines strain engineering and genome-scale metabolic modelling to enable aerobic conversion of CO- and H2-based feedstocks. This project is carried out in close collaboration with the Greening Lab at Monash University in Melbourne under the Woodside-Monash Energy Partnership.

Before joining the group, Daniel worked mainly with Pseudomonas putida, Corynebacterium glutamicum, and Escherichia coli at institutions including UQ, DTU, ETH, and MIT. Across these bacterial systems, he built experience in lignocellulosic feedstock valorisation, pathway design, systems biology, and model-guided strain engineering for more carbon-efficient microbial production systems. Outside the lab, he enjoys hiking, bouldering, and exploring different cultures through culinary expeditions in his own kitchen.

Publications

Kohtz, A.*, Bergen, D.*, Fritz, G., Marcellin, E., Leung, P. M., Blombach, B., van ’t Hag, L., Ebert, B. E., Greening, C*. Aerobic syngas conversion: opportunities, challenges, and solutions. Current Opinion in Microbiology 91, 102725 (2026).

Puiggené, Ò., Muñoz-Triviño, J., Civil-Ferrer, L., Gille, L., Schulz-Mirbach, H., Bergen, D., Erb, T. J., Ebert, B. E., Nikel, P. I. Systematic engineering of synthetic serine cycles in Pseudomonas putida uncovers emergent topologies for methanol assimilation. Trends in Biotechnology 43(10), 2539-2565 (2025).

Bergen, D., Puiggené, Ò., Marcellin, E., Speight, R. E., Nikel, P. I., Ebert, B. E. Co-substrate free valorisation of lignin monomers by assimilation of C1 and C2 by-products. bioRxiv (2025).

Schito, S.*, Zuchowski, R.*, Bergen, D., Strohmeier, D., Wollenhaupt, B., Menke, P., Seiffarth, J., Nöh, K., Kohlheyer, D., Bott, M., Wiechert, W., Baumgart, M., Noack, S. Communities of niche-optimized strains (CoNoS): design and creation of stable, genome-reduced co-cultures. Metabolic Engineering 73, 91-103 (2022).

*these authors contributed equally to the respective work

Contact

UWA Bayliss Building, Room 3.42

daniel.bergen@uwa.edu.au