Michael Melkonian


Michael Melkonian is a German botanist and professor of botany at the University of Cologne.

Biography

Michael Melkonian studied Biology at the University of Hamburg 1968–1978, receiving a Diploma degree in Botany in 1974. He remained in Hamburg to complete a doctorate in Botany in 1978. In 1978 he moved, as an Assistant Professor to the Botany Department at the University of Münster, where he stayed until his appointment as Full Professor and Chair of Botany at the University of Cologne in 1988. In 1982 he was Visiting Assistant Professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. From 1986–1988 he was a Heisenberg Fellow of the German Research Foundation. Since 2001 Melkonian is also Director of the Culture Collection of Algae at the University of Cologne.

Scientific contributions

Melkonian has research interests that range from cell biology,
systematics and biodiversity, through to evolution biotechnology, and environmental biotechnology of algae, especially microalgae. To date, he has published more than 240 refereed research papers, and book articles, edited several books, among them the Handbook of Protoctista, and wrote books in German ranging from General Botany to an Illustrated Guide to Freshwater Algae. Melkonian holds 15 patents and is Co-Founder of Algenion GmbH & Co. KG, an algal biotec company.
Melkonian studied the structure, function and development of the flagellar apparatus in algae and co-discovered several centrosomal proteins novel for eukaryotes. He further provided evidence that flagellar development in unicellular eukaryotes extends over more than one cell cycle generating flagella with different functions in the same cell. Through the study of the biogenesis of extracellular scales in green algae, the cisternal maturation model of intra-Golgi apparatus transport was revived. Studies on the eyespot apparatus of green algae eventually led to the identification of the photoreceptor channelrhodopsin and the emergence of the research area optogenetics. Melkonian also studied the systematics, diversity and evolution of algae with emphasis on green algae, cryptophytes, and euglenophytes but also heterotrophic protists, such as the Picozoa. Molecular phylogenetic analyses helped to identify the flagellate Mesostigma as the earliest divergence in the Streptophyta and the Zygnematophyceae as the likely sister group to the embryophyte land plants. The cercozoan photosynthetic amoeba Paulinella chromatophora was discovered as an example for the evolution of photosynthetic organelles through a second primary endosymbiosis independent of the origin of plastids. Additionally, his group developed a novel technique to grow microalgae at technical scale immobilized on Twin-Layers.

Activity in International Organizations