ABIC 2004 - Cologne - About ABIC -
[Cached Version]
Published on: 1/1/2004
Last Visited: 8/8/2008
Lothar Willmitzer, Prof.
After obtaining a Ph.D. from the Technical University of Braunschweig for a biophysical study on protein DNA interactions, Lothar Willmitzer joined the laboratory of Professor Jeff Schell at the Max-Planck-Institut für Züchtungsforschung, Köln, Germany in 1979.
...
Driven by the possibility to genetically transform plants using the Agrobacterium based system, Lothar Willmitzer decided in 1983 to start studying structure and function of plant promoters.He isolated several of the early tissue specific promoters, identified cis-acting elements and did some work on DNA binding proteins.
In 1986 he moved to Berlin where he took up the chair for Molecular Biology of the Free University of Berlin in combination with being Scientific Director of the newly founded Institut für Genbiologische Forschung (IGF).
The main new research area he started here was the analysis of carbohydrate metabolism using transgenic plants as a tool.
...
In addition to performing basic research Lothar Willmitzer was involved in founding two start up companies in the area of plant biotechnology and plant functional genomics.