“After being introduced to chemistry in 7th grade, I became deeper involved with chemistry during college in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Marburg, Germany. There, I earned my Vordiplom (B.S. equivalent) in chemistry in 1994. During this time, I worked on projects in diverse areas of chemistry, such as synthetic organic chemistry, physical chemistry, biochemistry and microbiology.”

“Certainly, Marburg’s strength in the area of organic chemistry played well into my game, and provided a thorough foundation for what was to come. Yet, this pronounced strength eventually contributed to my departure from there - Marburg was not keen on letting me study organic chemistry abroad for a year (The thought being that any other university is not going to adhere to a demanding enough organic chemistry teaching schedule).

“In 1995, I moved across the ocean to join the University of Pittsburgh Department of Chemistry as graduate student. Under the supervision of Professor Dennis P. Curran, I completed two methodology projects (DBFOX and Organogermanes) and contributed to a total synthesis project (Penitrem D), which is still unpublished. Moreover, I became early on involved in chemical databases, and was invited speaker at the Las Vegas National ACS Meeting on the subject of data-mining with MDL databases. Again, Pitt set the stage for even better things to come.”

“After wrapping up my Ph.D. in March 2000, I conducted postdoctoral work in Professor Samuel J. Danishefsky’s laboratory at the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research. There, I was working on the assembly of novel glycopeptides and on a collaborative effort towards the synthesis of Phomactin A. As you might know, Sloan-Kettering has been at the forefront of cancer research for more than a century and this venue has enabled me to learn many things beside chemistry.”