Antje Keppler (Germany)
| This is me, Antje Keppler, relaxing after some outdoor activities on my favourite island. |  |
Probably it was this very old book from 1935 about Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur which I had found in the school library that was responsible for my early interest in science. Already at school I was more curious about electrons, photosynthesis and colour reactions than about English grammar or economy.
Directly after school I started to study biochemistry at the Ruhr-University in Bochum, which was the beginning of a really exciting although not always easy time in my life. The task to study in completely self-responsible way combined with the daily organisation of practical classes, lectures and seminars in the various fields of biology, chemistry and physics made life quite challenging in the first semesters. But we were four of us fighting and learning together through all exams, which was not only extremely helpful but we often had much fun working together.
After three years we went for six months to Sussex University, England, as exchange students. It was our first time to work on a long-term research project on our own and my first experience of working abroad. Due to this semester abroad, my later PhD supervisor asked me if I would like to join him in Lausanne, Switzerland in his new laboratory. But first he sent me to Paris to do the DEA (diplôme d'études approfondies) in bioorganic chemistry, which was part of the PhD programme.
After four years in Lausanne, I went to Heidelberg to the EMBL (European Molecular Biology Laboratory), a highly international research facility for modern biology. Here, people from all over the world meet and work closely together in the various labs. You will find here all the new techniques and high-tech equipment for performing your experiments, and famous scientist come to EMBL to present their most recent data.Again, besides science also communication skills and collaborations with other scientists were important for my work. In my research projects I focused on developing techniques for fluorescently highlighting proteins so that other scientists can watch their favourite protein moving inside the cell.
After ten years of working in the laboratory I left the bench-side and now I work as a research manager at the Hygiene Institute at the University of Heidelberg. This job contains completely new challenges such as managing networks of research groups, organising conferences, recruiting people for the institute, surveying grant applications, creating connections to other research facilities and many other things. I am still working very closely with the research teams so that I keep in touch with science. But even more important for my current job are my experiences I got from living abroad, working together with other scientists and having seen the infrastructure of the different institutes at which I have studied and worked.
When I started studying science I would never had imagined how important my language skills in English and French would become one day, and how much I would learn and see about Europe! As a scientist you really have to be a cosmopolitan nowadays and this is now what I especially love about my career.
School:
Gymnasium Neustadt Neustadt i. H.