Annemarie Frischauf (Biology)
Annemarie Frischauf |
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Annemarie Frischauf is currently Professor of Genetics and Head of the Department of Molecular Biology at the University of Salzburg, Austria.
She studied chemistry at the University of Vienna and obtained a PhD working on affinity chromatography at the Max-Planck-Institute for Experimental Medicine in Göttingen, Germany with F. Eckstein. She then moved to Harvard at the time of intense discussion about the dangers of cloning DNA. As a postdoc in the lab of Paul Doty and Helga Boedtker, she and her husband Hans Lehrach isolated and cloned collagen mRNA.
During nine years as joint group leader (with Hans Lehrach) at EMBL, she worked on cloning strategies, vectors and genomic library construction. Within an international collaboration she analysed the t-complex, an area of the mouse genome which, through its extraordinary genetic properties, fascinated many geneticists. When positional cloning, a strategy for identifying genes responsible for hereditary diseases, became possible, she participated in the efforts to identify the gene for Huntington's disease and several other diseases. This was her main area of interest while she worked at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London.
In 1999, she moved to the University of Salzburg, where she now divides her time between research on the Gli transcription factors which play an important role in development and cancer; teaching genetics, genomics and molecular biology; and administrative duties as a Head of Department.
Annemarie has two grown-up sons who move about the world like she did, but who also stay in touch with her.