Career Day 2018

Jochen Schneider studied physics at the University of Jena from 2005 to 2011. He then joined the biophysics division at the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Dresden to work on the physics of cell membranes. After an intermediate scientific visit at the Francis Crick Institute in London, he received his PhD from the TU Dresden in 2016. 

Through his work for the Young German Physical Society, starting in 2008, Jochen became interested in science policy and science management. He decided to focus on these topics after finishing his PhD and, thus, joined the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. There he is currently working as an officer for strategic questions regarding research on sustainable development.

Dennis Janning studied Cell Biology and Life Sciences at the University of Osnabrück, Germany and is an alumni of the 2015 Lindau Nobel Laureates Meeting. In his PhD studies he introduced single molecule imaging techniques to the field of Neurobiology for quantitative analysing tau´s binding behaviour with microtubules in living nerve cells. After receiving his PhD in 2015, he joined agap2, an operational consultancy and engineering group, specialized in Life Sciences. In his role as a Technical Business Manager in the Frankfurt office, he developed the business and worked with customers like Roche, Fresenius, TEVA, Bayer and Boehringer Ingelheim overseeing numerous projects spanning the whole product life cycle. Since 2018 he is in charge for the Hamburg office of agap2 and develops the activities in the northern part of Germany. Furthermore he acts as a mentor and is responsible for the career development of the company's consultants.

INTAP – the international talents project for Dresden – is a non-profit project of „Scientists into Business“ and aims at keeping foreign academic professionals in Dresden after their graduation/ research completion from a university or research Institution in Dresden. To reach that goal, INTAP wants to simultaneously encourage local businesses to employ international academics. The focus of the project is set at sensitizing, the transfer of information and the integration of both parties in order to establish attractive incentives for international graduates to remain in Dresden. 

Originally from the US, Mike Thompson studied biochemistry at the University of Florida before moving to Dresden in 2011 to pursue his PhD work in the lab of Prof. Yixin Zhang at the B CUBE Center for Molecular Bioengineering. After defending his thesis in 2015, he assembled a team and secured an EXIST-Forschungstransfer grant to develop what would become DyNAbind GmbH.

Upon company foundation in early 2017, Mike became CEO of DyNAbind. Like all startup executives, this job requires him to wear many hats, and on any given day he may be involved in investor relations, working with clients, defining overall corporate strategy, personnel management, computational chemistry or even occasionally putting his PhD to use with actual lab work.

Jan Korporaal, PhD, studied Medical Natural Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (NL) and obtained in 2007 his master degree in Medical Physics, with a specialization in science communication. In 2011 he completed his PhD project at the Dept. of Radiotherapy of the University Medical Center Utrecht (NL) on dynamic contrast-enhanced CT and MRI imaging of prostate cancer. 

In summer 2011, after ten years of academia, he changed to Siemens Healthineers in Forchheim (D) and worked for four years as a researcher on the predevelopment and design of clinical applications and algorithms for computed tomography (CT). In 2015, he changed to his current job as clinical marketing manager for mammography systems. In this role, he is responsible for the management of clinical studies with customers and the analysis of scientific developments and trends. Simultaneously, he uses his skills in science communication for writing technical and clinical white papers and for the education and training of colleagues and radiologists world-wide.

Martin Büscher, physicist by training joined the company Miltenyi Biotec GmbH in 1992 as a summer student in the electronics department. After receiving his diploma in physics, he got an offer to join a PhD program within the company to work in the field of bioimaging in cooperation with the Deutsches Rheuma Forschungszentrum, Berlin and the Institute of applied Biotechnology at Friedrich Alexander University, Erlangen. He finished his PhD in 2003 and became project manager for flow cytometry at Miltenyi Biotec GmbH and later Head of Biophysics, leading the technology developments, systems integration and validation. In this function, he also supervises graduating students at various levels.

Peter Reinhardt studied Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Jena, Germany and University of Umeå, Sweden. From 2009 until 2014, Peter got into first contact with reprogrammed human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) during his PhD studies at the Max-Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Münster, Germany in the lab of Prof. Hans Schöler. Fascinated by the possibility to model human diseases in vitro with this technology, he continued this work in his Post Doc studies in Münster, as well as at the Center for Regenerative Therapies (CRTD) of the Technical University Dresden, working on Parkinson’s Disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Corea acantocitosis. Since 2015, Peter is responsible for using hiPSC technology for in vitro disease modeling at the Neuroscience Discovery site of AbbVie Germany in Ludwigshafen, where he is heading the Cell Programming and Transduction laboratory to allow research on neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s Disease and Multiple Sclerosis.

Andrea joined Nature Physics in 2014, having previously worked for Nature Communications and Nature Materials. A graduate of University College London, he completed his PhD in statistical physics. Following a short stint at the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon in France, he undertook postdoctoral work at Uppsala University in Sweden, investigating the dynamics of low-dimensional magnetic systems. Andrea is based in Nature office in London.

Anne Iltzsche and Katrin Rudolf

Anne completed a BSc in cognitive science, an MSc in regenerative biology and medicine, and a PhD in pharmacology and pharmaceutical and analytical sciences at King's College London, focusing on CNS pathologies and treatment approaches. After completing her PhD, Anne joined CAST PHARMA as an account manager.

Katrin studied biology at TU Dresden and completed her diploma and PhD studies in the lab of Christian Dahmann at the MPI-CBG and TU Dresden, focusing on tissue mechanics during development of the Drosophila wing. In 2015, Katrin joined CAST PHARMA as a medical adviser.

CAST PHARMA is a leading medical education agency that uses the concept of visual storytelling to create advanced medical training and learning tools for pharmaceutical and biotech companies worldwide.

As account manager, Anne oversees all aspects of project planning and execution and coordinates work across the project management, medical, and production teams.

In her role as medical adviser, Katrin oversees the development of concepts for interactive trainings and animated videos and advises the production team to ensure scientific accuracy of the visuals.

Anne and Katrin are experts in scientific and medical communication and together with the whole CAST PHARMA team they support leading pharmaceutical companies in conveying their communicative objectives to patients and key opinion leaders.