Rate My Professor Thomas Böttcher

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Thomas Böttcher serves as Professor of Microbial Biochemistry at the University of Vienna, with a joint appointment in the Department of Biological Chemistry within the Faculty of Chemistry and the Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science. He assumed this position in October 2020, leading the Böttcher Lab focused on biological chemistry. Previously, from 2014 to 2020, he was a junior research group leader and Research Fellow at the Zukunftskolleg of the University of Konstanz's Department of Chemistry. Böttcher completed his fast-track PhD studies from October 2006 to December 2009 in the group of Stephan A. Sieber. His career includes significant funding and recognition, such as the DFG Emmy Noether Grant in 2014, which supported his independent research profile in microbial biochemistry.

The research in Böttcher's group centers on the chemistry of microbial interactions and chemical strategies to modulate coordinated behaviors in microbial populations. They identify and structurally elucidate metabolites that mediate interactions between microbes and human hosts, then apply synthetic chemistry to develop species-specific antibiotics, anti-virulence agents, and active-site-directed chemical probes for virulence-related enzymes. Current projects encompass the ERC Proof of Concept-funded PhageTRAP device for phage capture and release (2026-2027), chemical tools for targeting bacterial effector proteins (2026-2030), and anti-infectives drug discovery (2025-2030). He is also involved in the FWF-funded Cluster of Excellence on Microbiomes Drive Planetary Health and international collaborations. Böttcher has earned the European Research Council Consolidator Grant, ERC Proof of Concept Grant, Manfred Fuchs Award (2019), election to Die Junge Akademie (2015), and membership in the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Key publications include "A quinolone N-oxide antibiotic selectively targets Neisseria gonorrhoeae via its toxin–antitoxin system" (Nature Microbiology, 2025), "A novel class of small-molecule inhibitors targeting bacteriophage infection" (RSC Chemical Biology, 2026), "A phage-selective trigger hints at an SOS-independent mechanism of prophage induction by oxidative stress" (Chemical Science, 2026), and earlier works like "β-Lactones as specific inhibitors of ClpP attenuate the production of extracellular virulence factors of Staphylococcus aureus" (2008) and "Natural products and their biological targets: proteomic and metabolomic labeling strategies" (2010). His contributions influence chemical microbiome engineering and therapies against infectious diseases.