„We’ll teach drug-resistant germs a lesson!“
It’s a bold statement, but one Gottfried can back up.

With over 18 years of research at the Robert Koch Institute and a career dedicated to studying bacterial pathogens since completing his PhD, he brings unparalleled expertise in screening and isolating microorganisms. In 2025, he founded HarzMicrobes with a clear mission: to build a healthier future for humans and an increasingly hostile one for dangerous germs.

By advancing how antibiotics are matched to microorganisms, HarzMicrobes ensures existing drugs are paired more effectively with their bacterial targets. And for pathogens that still have no effective match, new microbial producers are being discovered, ones that can outsmart even the most resistant strains.

The problem HarzMicrobes is solving is the global antibiotic resistance crisis. Every year, around one million deaths are linked to bacterial pathogens that no longer respond to available treatments. While most antibiotics originate from microorganisms, traditional discovery methods have become inefficient and slow. HarzMicrobes changes this by applying novel screening and isolation techniques that are up to 100 times more effective than conventional approaches, uncovering entirely new microbial producers of active compounds. By focusing on pre-clinical drug development and partnering with the pharmaceutical industry, HarzMicrobes accelerates the discovery of next-generation antibiotics and other high-value microbial products such as probiotics, cytostatic, fungicides, and insecticides.