Welcome to Paleo Park!
What can microbes that lived thousands of years ago tell us? And could they even help us discover new antibiotics? Bacterial DNA can remain preserved for vast periods of time in archaeological samples, such as ancient dental calculus. We use this surviving genetic information to find and recover the blueprints for new natural compounds. Some of these substances can inhibit or kill other microorganisms, making them promising candidates for the development of new antibiotics.
For the Long Night of Sciences, we are opening our laboratory and taking you on a journey into the microbial past. Along the way, you’ll become a Paleo Park explorer yourself: make DNA visible, take a look into the invisible world of microorganisms, and discover how we assemble and read the fragmented information hidden in ancient DNA. Then follow the trail from DNA to molecule and find out how genetic blueprints become real natural compounds, how we track them down and study them in the laboratory using extraction and chromatographic techniques – and how we discover whether one of them might be a new bioactive compound.
Step into Paleo Park and join us in discovering what lies hidden within ancient DNA!
