New roles for two IMP faculty members

As of January 2020, two members of the IMP faculty have taken over new roles: Johannes Zuber has become senior scientist, David Haselbach is a junior group leader.

Johannes Zuber joined the IMP as a junior group leader in 2011. His lab develops and employs innovative functional genetic tools such as CRISPR/Cas9, RNAi and targeted protein degradation to identify and study key regulators and dependencies in genetically engineered cancer models and tumour-associated immune cells. Among other awards and honours, Zuber has been recognised by the German Cancer Prize 2016, won an ERC Starting Grant, and became EMBO Young Investigator in 2014.

Before joining the IMP, Zuber was a postdoctoral researcher at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in the United States. This was preceded by medical studies, a doctoral thesis in molecular cancer research, and a residency at Berlin’s Charité hospital and medical school.

David Haselbach joined the IMP as a fellow in 2017. He uses novel biophysical techniques, especially cryo-electron microscopy, to watch molecular machines in action to understand their design principles. Haselbach explained his research in greater detail in a recent audio portrait.

Before joining the IMP, Haselbach was a postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, where he also did his PhD. Before that, Haselbach conducted research in single molecule biophysics for his master’s thesis at the Technical University of Munich. He had first ventured into the realm of the Max Planck Society through research for his bachelor’s thesis at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin.