Dr. Heiko J. Schuster, rer. nat., was born in Berlin, Germany. After doing his mandatory military service, he began studying chemistry at the University of Rostock finishing with his diploma under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Christian Vogel on comparing studies of alpha-fucosylations. Shortly afterwards, with the aid of a PhD scholarship (by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung) he joined the renown synthetic group of Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Lutz F. Tietze in Göttingen. During his PhD thesis, he did research on the synthesis of prodrugs for cancer therapies, natural product structure elucidations and some NMR studies finishing with highest marks in early 2008. After an industry internship at the Bayer Schering Pharma AG, he decided to revisit his old passion for academic carbohydrate research and started in the Ben Davis Labs in August 2008. Here in Oxford, he was given the chance to employ synthetic experience with newly acquired knowledge on protein and virus work, tissue culture work and all the necessary analytical methods. Currently, he is part of the IAVI team (International Aids Vaccine Initiative) working on novel site-selective glycoconjugations of sugars for vaccine purposes. Previously, he worked on a BBSRC funded project on novel chemical and enzymatic on-target protein- and virus surface modifications with the goal to reduce immunogenicity and enhance circulation times. If not actually in the lab, he still tries to finish off a review on regioselective glycosylation, which seems to take for ages already.

In and outside the lab, he is very talkative, about his rare occasions of playing squash with his Oxford housemates or attending Reading FC games, but also about the fact that he would love to have more time to resume some of his old hobbies (badminton, running, riding horses, playing the accordeon, etc.).

Last updated: 19-05-10