Position: Associate Professor (W2) of Systems Virology, Hannover Medical School, Germany
Research focus: Herpesviral latency & transcriptomics
What do you love about viruses?
Their diversity in form and function and their (outsized) role in shaping our societies.
On what topic could you give a 30-min talk without preparation?
Sequencing informatics or VZV latency.
What is your favorite way to spend a day off?
Cycling and/or Hiking with my family followed by a good meal and a good film/concert/book.
What are you currently learning?
How to better structure, document, and partition, computational workflows.
What do people think about you that isn’t true?
That I am a bioinformatician only (in reality I have extensive training in molecular biology, hence why research in my lab uses both wet- and dry-lab approaches).
What was your most surprising scientific finding?
The VZV latency transcript (VLT)
If you had the option to give advice to a younger version of yourself, what would that be?
Always remember that a career in science is a journey without any fixed destination.
Is there anything you would like to share with other EVBC members?
The following quote has always made me think of viruses:
” … the enemy was a curious organism only vaguely understood, more often the subject of cartoons than nightmares.”
– Joe Haldeman, The Forever War