Examining proteins at a molecular level

He has been teaching and researching for ten years at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, where he also studied for his first degree in Biology and later PhD.

As Ivo’s research interests centre around the atomic structure and interaction of proteins, he is keen to engage in interdisciplinary work with academic colleagues. “I was very impressed by the facilities at Southampton and relished the opportunity to work with world-leading scientists in other academic areas. We currently work on malaria and intend to widen that scope to identify potential drug targets,” he says.

At Southampton, he will be establishing macromolecular crystallography in close link with Dr Simon Coles who heads the University’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) National Crystallography Centre in Chemistry. Ivo also intends to use the University’s powerful supercomputer and the Diamond synchrotron light source in Oxfordshire as part of his research into single proteins.

Ivo’s early interest in science was encouraged at school; he was given copies of a German science journal for children and was taught by an inspirational biology teacher. “I was interested in all the sciences, but biology was always my favourite,” he explains. After university, he took part in a European Union-funded project to study at Cambridge, Berlin and Heidelberg where he made many valuable contacts. Ivo then undertook postdoctoral studies in cancer research at the Medical Research Council (MRC) National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill, London.