Biochemical Journal Poster Prize winner

Thomas U. Mayer

Thomas U. Mayer performed his Ph.D. thesis in the lab of Professor S. Jentsch at the University of Heidelberg, where he studied ubiquitin-dependent protein degradation in yeast. For his postdoctoral work he joined the lab of Professor T. Mitchison at Harvard Medical School, Boston, U.S.A. There he got interested in Chemical Biology, i.e. the application of small molecules to modulate protein function in living cells. During his postdoctoral time, he identified monastrol, the first anti-mitotic agent that does not target microtubules. As an Emmy-Noether Fellow Thomas Mayer was the head of a research group at the Max-Planck Institute in Martinsried, Germany. Since 2007 he has been a full professor at the University of Konstanz, Germany. The overall aim of his research is to understand the process of chromosome segregation in higher eukaryotes.