GEOMAR Centre for Marine Biotechnology GEOMAR-Biotech, is an integral part and the applied arm of the research unit Marine Natural Products Chemistry.
GEOMAR-Biotech is the successor of the Kiel Centre for Marine Natural Products (also known as Kieler Wirkstoff-Zentrum, KiWiZ), which was founded in 2006 through financial support of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Employment, Transport and Technology Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.
GEOMAR-Biotech is led by Prof. Dr. Deniz Tasdemir, who is also the head of the Research Unit Marine Natural Product Chemistry within the Research Division Marine Ecology.
GEOMAR-Biotech is the successor of the Kiel Centre for Marine Natural Products, (Kieler Wirkstoff-Zentrum, KiWiZ), which was founded as an initiative of the state Schleswig-Holstein. The state government of Schleswig-Holstein funded the installation and assembly of the KiWiZ laboratories, instrumentation and research staff for marine natural product research (2005-2010).
With the notification of the grant approval in December 2005 the KiWiZ started its work as an applied large R&D project of the Research Unit (RU) Marine Microbiology of IFM-GEOMAR. In 2006, KiWiZ became operational at its current location Am Kiel-Kanal 44, with a primary focus on microbial marine natural products under the directorship of Prof. Johannes F. Imhoff.
In 2014, Prof. Deniz Tasdemir has been recruited through Helmholtz recruitment initiative to take over the leadership of the KiWiZ under the newly established Research Unit Marine Natural Products Chemistry. On 1st October 2015, KiWiZ was relaunched with a new name (GEOMAR-Biotech), and a new logo. Since October 2023, the unit have been located in the new building of the GEOMAR Campus, Wischhofstraße 1 - 3, 24148 Kiel.
