Martin Kircher PhD

Martin is a Computational Molecular Biologist by training (B.Sc./M.Sc.hon. at Saarland University, Germany) and received his PhD (Dr. rer. nat.) in Computer Sciences from the University of Leipzig, Germany, in 2011. He has a broad interest in genomics, epigenetics and evolution as well as the development of sequencing protocols, technologies and bioinformatics approaches to advance our capabilities in these fields.

Martin did his Master's thesis on microRNAs and genomic imprinting in the DLK1/GTL2 region in the labs of Jörn Walter and Thomas Lengauer. In 2007, he entered the field of ancient DNA at a time when high-throughput sequencing completely transformed Svante Pääbo's department at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. During his PhD, Martin was advised by Janet Kelso and Peter Stadler. He developed a base caller for the Illumina/Solexa systems (IBIS), implemented the analysis pipelines that underlie the Neandertal and Denisova genomes and analysed NGS data for different ancient DNA and comparative gene expression studies.