Professor Gerhard Braus

Georg August University, Germany

Talk Title

Tête-à-tête with fungi

Biography

Gerhard Braus studied Biology at Albert-Ludwig University in Freiburg, Germany. He earned a PhD degree (1987) and the habilitation (1992) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH). He was appointed as Associate Professor of Biochemistry at Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen in 1993 and as Full Professor of Microbiology and Genetics in Göttingen in 1996. Additional periods of research included the Biocenter in Basel, the University of Georgia in Athens GA, and the BMS Institute of Functional Genomics in Princeton NJ. He has served as Dean of the Biological Faculty, as Senator of the University of Göttingen and as President of the German Genetics Society. He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and the Akademie der Wissenschaften Göttingen, and a member of several editorial boards. The major focus of his activities is on the interplay between secondary metabolism and development and aging of eukaryotic microorganisms (yeasts and filamentous fungi), the impact of fungal pathogens on human health and agriculture, and the study of fungi as models for cellular responses resulting in protein aggregate clearance in neurodegenerative diseases (e.g. alpha-synuclein as hallmark of Morbus Parkinson).