Director @ MPI of Molecular Plant Physiology, Department of Organelle Biology, Biotechnology and Molecular Ecophysiology
Professor Dr. Ralph Bock studied Biology at the University of Halle, Germany, specializing in genetics, microbiology, biochemistry, and plant physiology, and received his MSc (Diploma) in Genetics in 1993. He completed his PhD in Genetics, summa cum laude, at the University of Freiburg in 1996, following doctoral research at the Waksman Institute, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and the University of Freiburg. After serving as Assistant Professor at the University of Freiburg and later as Full Professor and Chair at the University of Münster, he became Director at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam-Golm and Professor at the University of Potsdam in 2004. His research focuses on plastid and mitochondrial biology, photosynthesis, biotechnology and synthetic biology, evolutionary biology, and gene expression in algal model systems. He is a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, an elected member of EMBO, a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and a member of the US National Academy of Sciences. His distinctions include the Martin Gibbs Medal of the American Society of Plant Biologists, and he has authored more than 300 publications.