I studied medicine at the University of Innsbruck. I joined the laboratory of Kai Simons at EMBL in Heidelberg (Germany) as postdoc in epithelial biology until 1994. I then moved to the University of Geneva (Switzerland) and worked in the laboratory of Jean Gruenberg on endocytosis in epithelial cells. In 1996 I started my own laboratory at the I.M.P. in Vienna (Austria) and in 2002 I got appointed as professor and head of the Division of Cell Biology and in 2005 as scientific director of the Biocenter of Innsbruck Medical University (Austria). I initiated and coordinated the FP6 EU program GROWTHSTOP, the Austrian Proteomics Platform of the Austrian Genome Program (GEN-AU), a special research program in Innsbruck entitled “Cell proliferation and Cell Death in Tumors” – SFB021 of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and actively participate in several EU programs and also coordinate programs. Since 2009 I am also CSO of the ONCOTYROL center of personalized cancer medicine in Innsbruck, Austria and since 2012 founder and scientific director of the Austrian Drug Screening Institute (ADSI).

Spatio-temporal regulation of signal transduction through scaffold complexes and their subcellular localization, protein transport and sorting, proteomics, mouse genetics, translational cancer research, enteropathies, lysosomal diseases, orphan diseases, drug development