Jenny Fabian

I studied biology at the University of Rostock with majors in chemistry and biology of the marine ecosystems. In my diploma thesis I studied possible effects of climate induced ocean acidification on growth and production of heterocystous cyanobacteria. The thesis was embedded in the project BIOACID, supervised by Dr. habil. Maren Voss and Dr. Nicola Wannicke, Department of Marine Nitrogen Cycle, Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde, Germany. In particular, I looked at various biological parameters, such as nitrogen fixation and primary production using stable isotopes, along a natural pCO2 gradient during a research vessel in the Baltic Sea as well as along an anthropogenic gradient in a mesocosm experiment. I discovered that the reaction of cyanobacteria to ocean acidification is not only modified by the environmental factors light and temperature but probably also by the intracellular phosphate concentration.

Within my position as a research assistant in the research project SEMS I am involved in the development of tools to identify differences between computational models and to transfer this knowledge into a format intelligible to all, to support the reuse of these models. My main task is to analyze published cell cycle models. In particular, I try to identify differences and similarities in, for example, the processes they are describing, the modelled species, or in the aims for their development.