Department of Microbiology/ Organismic Interactions

Prof. Dr. Forchhammer

Short CV - Prof. Dr. K. Forchhammer

Protrait of Prof. Dr. Karl ForchhammerI was born on December 22, 1959, in Seville (Spain), attended the Elementary School DSR in Rome and the High School in Vaterstetten (near Munich, Germany). Following the "Abitur" in 1979, I studied Chemistry and Biology with specialization in Microbiology and Biochemistry at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich with the help of a scholarship from the "Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes". During my Diploma-Thesis at the "Lehrstuhl für Mikrobiologie" and the following PhD work (under supervision of Prof. Dr. A. Böck) I investigated the biosynthesis and incorporation of selenocysteine in proteins of Escherichia coli. With this thesis I received the PhD thesis-award of the German Society for Microbiology, VAAM (Vereinigung für Allgemeine und Angewandte Mikrobiologie). In 1991, I finished my studies on selenocysteine synthesis as a Post-Doc in the same institute.
In 1992/1993, I switched topics and went as a Post-Doc with a scholarship from the DFG to the "Unité de Physiologie Microbienne" (headed by Dr. Nicole Tandeau de Marsac) at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. There I discovered the serine phosphorylation of the PII signalling protein in the cyanobacterium Synechococcus PCC 7942. From 1994 to 1999, I was assistant professor at the Univeristy of Munich and continued the studies of the PII signalling system and nitrogen starvation responses in cyanobacteria. I received habilitation in 1995 and in 1999, I was appointed as Professor for Microbiology at the Justus-Liebig-University of Giessen in the "Institut für Mikrobiologie und Molekularbiologie". Since April 2007 I am chair of the department for Microbiology/Organismic interactions at the University of Tübingen.

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