Marino Zerial

Marino Zerial (born August 8, 1958 in Trieste ) is an Italian cell biologist . In 2006 he was awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize .

Career

After finishing school and studying biology, Zerial received his doctorate in 1982 from the University of Trieste . From 1982 on he was a research assistant, initially at the Jacques Monod Institute , Paris, and from 1985 on at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) (from 1989 as a permanent employee) in Heidelberg . In 1991 Zerial became head of a research group in the cell biology program at EMBL.

Since 1998 he has been one of the five directors of the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) in Dresden. He also has the position of a university professor at the medical faculty of the Technical University of Dresden . Since July 2019 he has been Managing Director of the MPI-CBG.

Marino Zerial is married and has two children.

research

Marino Zerial's group is researching molecular mechanisms during transport processes ( called endocytosis in technical jargon ) in cells. Through his work, Zerial has provided new insights into the understanding of fundamental cellular processes. With the help of the latest technology, it is currently possible to observe the pathways of different endosomes in a living cell. By searching for the relevant genes of these transports and analyzing them, it is hoped to gain further knowledge of how endocytosis works in order to develop new healing methods in the long term, for example for viral or bacterial infections, but also for diseases of the nervous system.

Awards

• 1994: FEBS annual award , Finland
• 1998: Chiara D'Onofrio Prize , Italy
• 2006: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize , Germany
• Zerial is an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization

Web links

• Information from the DFG on Marino Zerial ( Memento from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive )