Prof. Dr. Tobias Bollenbach

CDS Research Areas

How do cells respond to combinations of drugs and other signals? Can the evolution of antibiotic resistance be predicted and prevented? How do microbial ecosystems function? To tackle these and related questions, we combine concepts and techniques from physics with molecular biology and advanced high-throughput techniques. Our favorite model systems are E. coli and yeast but we are broadly interested in various other biological systems. To ultimately discover the general principles and laws of biology, we use a quantitative approach, i.e. whenever possible we measure and interpret numbers rather than pictures or qualitative effects.

Selected publications

1. Mulla, Y., Müller, J., Trimcev, D., and Bollenbach, T. (2025). Extreme diversity of phage amplification rates and phage–antibiotic interactions revealed by PHORCE. PLOS Biol. 23, e3003065. 
   https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003065
2. Angermayr, S.A., Pang, T.Y., Chevereau, G., Mitosch, K., Lercher, M.J., and Bollenbach, T. (2022). Growth‐mediated negative feedback shapes quantitative antibiotic response. Mol. Syst. Biol., e10490. 
   https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.28.424579
3. Lukačišin, M., Espinosa-Cantú, A., and Bollenbach, T. (2022). Intron-mediated induction of phenotypic heterogeneity. Nature 605, 113-118. 
   https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.01.19.427159.
4. Lukačišinová, M., Fernando, B., and Bollenbach, T. (2020). Highly parallel lab evolution reveals that epistasis can curb the evolution of antibiotic resistance. Nat. Commun. 11, 3105. 
   https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16932-z.
5. de Vos, M.G.J., Zagorski, M., McNally, A., and Bollenbach, T. (2017). Interaction networks, ecological stability, and collective antibiotic tolerance in polymicrobial infections. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 114, 10666–10671.
    http://www.pnas.org/lookup/doi/10.1073/pnas.1713372114.