Günther Daum

	Profession	Associate Professor at Graz University of Technology, Institute of Biochemistry
	ACIB Function	Key Researcher in the field of Cell Design & Engineering
	Contact	guenther.daum@acib.at

Günther Daum (born in 1951 in Graz) studied chemistry with a focus on biochemistry and biotechnology at the Graz University of Technology. After completing his Master Thesis in 1975 he became an Assistant at the Institute of Biochemistry, Graz University of Technology, where he also performed his PhD studies till 1978 under the guidance of Prof. F. Paltauf. 

After post-doctoral studies (1980-1981) at the Biocenter Basel, Switzerland, in the group of Prof. G. Schatz (EMBO Long-term Fellowship), he completed his Habilitation in Biochemistry and started his own research group at the Institute of Biochemistry, Graz University of Technology. In 1986 and 1987 he was sabbatical visitor at the University of California, Berkeley, USA, in the group of Prof. R. Schekman (Max-Kade Fellowship) and in 1995 he was appointed Associate Professor at the Graz University of Technology. Between 2001 and 2003 he was Head of the Institute of Biochemistry at the University of Technology.

Major research interests are intracellular dynamics of lipids, assembly of lipids into organelle membranes and lipid storage in the yeast. Besides the baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae which is used as eukaryotic model for fundamental studies, Pichia pastoris is employed for applied research. As career-related activities Günther Daum is currently Board Member of the Austrian Science Foundation (FWF), Chairman of the Yeast Lipid Conference, President of the International Conference on the Bioscience of Lipids and Editor of Progress in Lipid Research and FEMS Yeast Research. He is also Director of the NaWi Graz Doctoral School “Molecular Biosciences and Biotechnology“ at the Graz University of Technology.

Within ACIB he serves as Key Researcher in the field of Cell Design & Engineering.