Nico Dissmeyer

Biography

Nico was born in Detmold, Germany, moved to Tübingen to study biochemistry and philosophy with an emphasis in bioethics. There, he worked part-time in the Center for Plant Molecular Biology (ZMBP) in the Department of Gerd Jürgens, where he first got excited about plant sciences. He moved on via Oregon State University, Corvallis, USA and the Freie Universität Berlin to study Biochemistry and Biophysics. His graduate work was at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research at Cologne. He received his PhD from the Universität zu Köln in 2009 for work on CYCLIN-DEPENDENT-KINASE A;1 and other cell cycle regulators. For his PhD thesis, he received the Elisabeth Gateff Award 2010 of the German Genetics Society (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Genetik, GfG). From 2009 to 2011, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institut de Biologie Moléculaire des Plantes of the CNRS at Strasbourg, France. In spring 2011, he got appointed an independent junior research group leader at the Leibniz Institute of Plant Biochemistry (IPB) at Halle (Saale), Germany, where he is now heading the junior research group of the ScienceCampus Halle – Plant-Based Bioeconomy since October 2011. Since 2012, Nico is a Young Leaders in Science fellow of the Ernst Schering Foundation. Current research focus is on the molecular basis of protein–protein recognition and targeted protein degradation. Most of the laboratory work is done in the currently best-studied plant model organism mouse-ear cress (Arabidopsis thaliana). His lab also has strong interests in translational science and one focus is on switchable systems for protein expression in living plants.

In July 2018, he was offered a full professorship of plant physiology at the University of Osnabrück. He officially started his work there in July 2019.