Jonathan Gershenzon, Ph.D.
Director and Scientific Member
Department of Biochemistry
Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology

SPEAKER BIO
After studying biology as an undergraduate at the University of California in Santa Cruz, Gershenzon received his PhD in botany from the University of Texas in 1984. From 1985 until 1997 he worked as a scientist at the Institute for Biological Chemistry, Washington State University in Pullman. Since 1997 he is a Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, where he heads the Department of Biochemistry. He was appointed Honorary Professor at Friedrich Schiller University Jena in 1999.

Gershenzon studies the biochemistry of secondary plant metabolites, their mode of action on herbivores, the regulation of secondary metabolisms in plants and the evolution of pathways. Most of the work in his department focuses on two major groups of plant defenses: glucosinolates and terpenoids.

Host: Julia Kubanek, Ph.D.