User:J. Berndorff/Gebhard Schertler

Gebhard Schertler (born February 1, 1957) is an accomplished Austrian biochemist renowned for his extensive contributions to the field of structural biology of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), in particular those that mediate light perception in animals (rhodopsins). Currently, he holds the position of Head of the Biology and Chemistry Division at the Paul Scherrer Institute, where he has established a world-class research program for structural analysis of protein dynamics using X-ray free-electron lasers, positioning the institute as a leading center in the field. Schertler is also a co-founder of biotechnology companies The GPCR Company (2003), Heptares Therapeutics (2007), LeadXpro AG (2015), and InterAx Biotech Ltd (2016).

Early life and education
Schertler was born in Dornbirn, Austria. He obtained his education in chemistry from the University of Innsbruck, Austria and carried out his PhD thesis (1984-1989) under the guidance of Dieter Oesterheld and Hartmut Michel at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, Munich, Germany, on the light-sensitive bacterial membrane protein bacteriorhodopsin.

Career
Schertler received an EMBO fellowship and moved in 1989 to the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge, UK. First, he stayed in the group of Richard Henderson as a staff scientist and in 1998 he became an independent group leader. In 2010 Schertler moved to Switzerland and became Head of the Biology and Chemistry Division at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) and member of the directorial board of PSI, and Professor of Structural Biology at ETH Zürich.

Schertler's research focuses on understanding the relationship between structure and function in GPCRs and their downstream signaling components. He has contributed significantly to the field by solving the structure of several GPCRs and GPCR complexes,    including the publication of the first structural model of a GPCR (rhodopsin) obtained by electron cryo-microscopy. In addition, his group was the first to successfully perform time-resolved crystallography of rhodopsin, a light-sensitive GPCR, on a free electron laser. He explored the diversity of visual pigments and determined a structure of an invertebrate bistable rhodopsin. He is now exploiting the engineering of bistable rhodopsins for novel optogenetic tools, addressing GPCR signalling directly. For this project he was recently awarded as a coordinator a prestigious grant from the European Research Council (ERC) Synergy program.