Profile
Alexander Lorenz
My CV
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Education:
I went to primary school in the council house estate where my family lived in the 2nd district of Vienna, Austria. I then went on to high school also in the 2nd district of Vienna (the same high school Sigmund Freud went to, the school is now named after him).
After high school, I decided that I wanted to study Biology and started to study Biology with a focus on Botany at the University of Vienna. During my undergraduate studies I also moved to Germany (the University of Cologne) for a year, that was part of an ERASMUS student exchange. After finishing my undergraduate with a Master thesis on plant development, I secured a PhD studentship in a Genetics lab, so moved by focus from plant biology to yeast genetics.
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Qualifications:
1992: Finished high school with “Matura” (the equivalent of A-levels) in Chemistry (A), German (C), English (C), French (C), Maths (B), and Music (A).
1999: Finished undergraduate studies with a Master of Research (MRes) degree (with distinction) in Botany from the University of Vienna, Austria.
2003: Finished postgraduate studies with a PhD in Genetics from the University of Vienna, Austria.
I did specialist courses at the Cold Spring Harbor Labs, New York, USA and at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Centre near Cambridge, UK.
My PhD enabled me to secure a job as a postdoctoral research associate (basically a kind of junior scientist) first at the University of Vienna, where I worked for another 2 years. Then, I moved to the University of Oxford where I worked for ~7 years. Finally, I moved to Aberdeen where I became a university lecturer.
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Work History:
During high school summer breaks I worked in a garden centre, for a small pharmaceutical company, and for Kodak to earn some extra money.
During my undergraduate studies I had a series of jobs sometimes during the summer break at times working on zero-hours contracts during term time. This included work at a major conference centre in Vienna, data entry for the Viennese health care trust, and doing guided tours through the Botanical Garden in Vienna. One summer I even worked as tour guide in Scotland for an Austrian travel company.
Since my PhD studies I was always employed at universities:
University of Vienna, Austria (I also worked at the University of Bern, Switzerland for a month, this was a research leave to learn new techniques)
University of Oxford, UK
University of Aberdeen, UK
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Current Job:
I am now a Senior Lecturer and group leader at the University of Aberdeen. My duties are:
- Performing research
- Advising research students (Honours, Masters, Doctoral students), taking care that my group members are busy and happy
- Teaching undergraduates (lecturing, practicals)
- Obtaining research funding (basically asking government and charities for money to pay for researchers working with me)
- Giving talks (to other scientists and the public)
- Writing up research results for publication in science magazines
- Helping science magazines publishing other scientists’ research
- Editing books
- ….
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About Me:
I am very excited about the biology of yeast and fungi. I am originally from Austria and live in the UK since 2005.
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Read more
I was born in Vienna, Austria, and went there to school and university. Most of my family and friends still live in Vienna. In 2005 I moved to the United Kingdom, first to Oxford and seven years ago to Aberdeen.
Apart from doing science, I love playing the classical guitar. I listen to a lot of music, mostly classical but occasionally also to jazz or rock (Queen). Before the pandemic I would often go to classical music concerts and the opera. I enjoy cooking, drinking black & green tea, and eating chocolate. When I find the time I also read a lot: novels, popular science outside my specialty, philosophy, and comics. During the lockdown I also developed a new skill: baking sourdough bread, this satisfied my need to do experiments with yeast; I have now baked ~100 loaves.
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Read more
Currently, I live in Aberdeen where I lead a team of four researchers at the University of Aberdeen. We all work on yeast to understand different cellular processes.
Yeast are single-celled fungi. Some yeast species are very useful to us, as a lot of food and drink would be impossible without them. Just imagine a life without bread, doughnuts, pizza, coffee, and cocoa (chocolate)! That would not be much fun, would it? Also in scientific research yeasts have been very useful in trying to figure out how cells work and how they perform certain tasks. This has also helped us understand human biology, because yeasts are much simpler and it’s much easier to figure out what’s going on. Once we understand how things function in yeast, it’s more straightforward to work out how the same process is performed by human cells. So, yeast is a great model organism because it helps us understand how biology happens on a cellular level.
Other yeast species can make us sick, which definitely isn’t fun. Therefore, research on these yeast species is important so that we can treat people who are infected by them.
My research group works with 2 yeast species. One is used as a model to understand basic cell functions. The other one is a species which can make people very sick, we try to understand why that is and how this yeast species infects people.
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My Typical Day:
Scientist, like me, get up late, but we also work very late. On a normal day, I would get into the lab, grow some yeast in sugary water, look at it under the microscope, and study it with other special equipment. I will talk to other scientists in my lab about new things I found or problems I had when I tried to find out things (a lot of this is currently done by Zoom meetings). They will also talk to me about the new things and their problems. Then, together we will try to find solutions to our problems. I also write a lot of emails to other scientists, and articles for science magazines, so that everybody can read what we found out about yeast.
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
guitar-playing geneticist
What did you want to be after you left school?
I always wanted to be a scientist
Were you ever in trouble at school?
Not really, apart from being an unbearable know-it-all
Who is your favourite singer or band?
I am into classical music, best answer is The Vienna Phlharmonic Orchestra
What's your favourite food?
Italian
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
More money for my research, another guitar, and I always can do with more chocolate
Tell us a joke.
Q: Why did the Mushroom get invited to all the parties? A: Because he's a fungi!
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