Gebhard F.X. Schertler

Who is Gebhard F.X. Schertler?

Gebhard was born in Austria and studied chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. From 1984-1989 he did a PhD at the Max-Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Munich, Germany. Major fields of study were in molecular biology, biophysics, and biochemistry of membrane proteins and membrane protein crystallisation. He switched to the field of G-protein-coupled receptors as a Research Associate in the Department of Structural Studies at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in 1989. After an intermediate position as a staff scientist at the MRC in Cambridge, he became a group leader in 1999, and he has made major contributions to the structure of visual pigments and GPCRs using electron microscopy and high-brilliance x-ray diffraction methods. From 3D electron microscopy data he deduced the first experimental template for the seven helices of GPCRs. Together with Brian Kobilka from Stanford University, Gebhard solved the first structure of a human beta 2 adrenergic receptor.