I started studying biology at the University of Zürich in 2010 and changed to biochemistry a year before obtaining the bachelor’s degree in 2014. I continued with biochemistry and did a short research project in the lab of Prof. Ben Schuler on Prothymosin α using FRET. I did my master thesis in the lab of Prof. Oliver Zerbe, investigating the Littorina littorea metallothionein and solving its structure with NMR. We were able to publish the results as a communication in Angewandte Chemie, which got mentioned in Science.

 

After graduating in 2016, I started working at Agroscope at the institute of food sciences (ILM) as part of my Zivildienst and was able to stay longer as intern. I was looking at peptides and metabolites using LC-MS and LC-MS/MS in the research unit for biochemistry of milk and microorganisms. One of the main projects I was involved in compared static and dynamic in vitro digestion systems to in vivo pig digestion of skim milk powder. For the remaining time of my Zivildienst, I worked at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL). I was mainly involved in the preparation of soil samples and in performing lignin-extractions and measurements with GC-FID & GC-MS.

 

In January 2018, I returned to the Zerbe lab as a PhD student and started to work on the GPCR project. The goal of my project is to characterize the activation and deactivation of the α1b-adrenergic receptor with the dynamics that are involved. To carry out this research, I received funding from the Forschungskredit of the UZH for one year. I’m also still involved in the metallothionein project by supervising master students.