Siegfried Scherer

Siegfried Scherer holds a diploma in biology and a Doctoral degree in Plant Physiology from the university of Konstanz. Since 2004 he has held the Chair of Microbial Ecology at the Technical University of Munich, and since 2003 he has been the Managing Director of the interdisciplinary Research Center of Nutrition and Food Science. In addition, since 2008 he has been the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Life Sciences at the Wissenschaftszentrum Weihenstephan, Technical University of Munich. Past positions include Visiting Scientist (Molecular biology of terrestial cyanobacteria) for the Department of Biochemistry, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, USA, followed by Professor and Director of the Department of Microbiology. He completed postdoctoral research on ecophysiology, bioenergetics and biochemistry of cyanobacteria at University of Konstanz. His current research is on molecular ecology and genetics of food-borne pathogenic bateria; taxonomy and evolution; and overlapping genes in eubacteria. Further interests include the interfaces between biology, philosophy and religion. His personal homepage is available at http://www.wzw.tum.de/micbio/.