Born 1967 in Tucson, Arizona, USA. Study of Biology, The Johns Hopkins University, USA (1985 – 1989), PhD in Biology, M.I.T., Cambridge, USA (1989 – 1996), Postdoctoral Fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Boston, USA (1996 – 1998) and at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA (1998 – 2001), Faculty Member at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, USA (primary appointment 2001 – 2017, adjunct since 2017), Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, USA (2005 – 2017), Director at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (secondary since 2016, primary appointment since 2017), Honorary Professor at the Technical University of Munich, Department of Chemistry (since 2018).