Born 1977 in Leipzig, Germany. Studies of Biochemistry in Halle/Saale, PhD studies at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, doctorate from the Technical University of Munich (2006), post-doc at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (2006-2009), group leader and senior scientist at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany (2010-2019), Director und Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics (since 2019).