Cell scientist to watch - Robert Ernst.

After obtaining his diploma in human biology at the Philipps-University Marburg, Germany, Robert Ernst joined the laboratory of Lutz Schmitt and obtained his PhD (summa cum laude) at Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf in 2007. For his postdoctoral work, Robert worked with Hidde Ploegh at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, USA, supported by an EMBO long-term fellowship. Afterwards, he returned to Germany, to the laboratory of Kai Simons at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden. In 2012, Robert became an Emmy Noether fellow of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and joined the Institute of Biochemistry, Goethe-University Frankfurt as a Junior Professor. Robert moved to the University of Saarland in 2017 as a full professor of molecular biology. His laboratory is interested in sense-and-control elements underlying the homeostasis of cellular membrane properties and their active role in cellular signalling.