The Institute of Molecular Biotechnology, in cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology (IME), is involved in the development of plants that are genetically optimized for the production of pharmaceutically active proteins and industrially utilizable raw materials. The institute is also developing methods to secure biomass by producing plants with sustainable pathogen resistance, thereby increasing yield and reducing the use of pesticides. Biosynthetic pathways of plants can be genetically optimized to enrich defined secondary metabolites or to reduce their concentration. In addition, synthesis in other organisms may contribute to the production of important herbal ingredients. In the field of plant virology, the institute develops viruses as expression vectors for recombinant proteins from plant bioreactors and designs virus particles for use in biomaterials and as carriers for pharmaceutically active substances.