| school | ||
| 1965-1968 | Grundschule Hamburg "Am Lehmkuhlenweg" | |
| 1968-1977 | Gymnasium Athenaeum Stade | |
| 1977 | Abiturprüfungen | |
| academic curriculum | ||
| 1977-1978 | "studium generale" at Leibniz Kolleg, Tübingen | |
| 1978-1979 | Studies in chemistry at the University of Tübingen | |
| 1979 | Studies in biochemisty at the University of Tübingen | |
| 1981 | masters (diploma) in biochemistry | |
| 1981/1982 | eight-month stay in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Liverpool, England | |
| 1984 | diploma exam in biochemistry | |
| 1984-1986 | diplomawork at the Max-Planck-Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen (Department of Biochemistry; head: Prof. Dr. Uli Schwarz). Title: "Biochemical and immunological characterization of a glycoprotein from the extracellular matrix of the embryonic chick retina" | |
| 1986-1989 | PhD thesis at the Max-Planck-Institute for Developmental Biology. Title: "Layer formation in the tectum opticum of the chick embryo as exemplified by the separation of the retino-tectal and the tecto-bulbärer projection". | |
| February 1989 | thesis defense in the Department of Biology/Zoology | |
| 1989-1992 | Postdoktoral fellow at the Department of Neurobiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, in the lab of Dr. U. J. McMahan. Title: "Cloning, characterization and expression of a chick agrin cDNA". | |
| 1992-2000 | head of an independent research lab at the Max-Planck-Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt (Department of Neuroanatomy) | |
| 1993-2000 | teaching in the Department of Biology at the Technical University Darmstadt. | |
| 1998 | habilitation at the University of Darmstadt, "venia legendi" for Cell Biology and Neurobiology | |
| 2000 - 2006 | assistant professor at the Institute for Physiological Chemistry and Pathobiochemistry (medical faculty) at the University of Mainz | |
| 2006 - 2007 | Professor for Molecular Cell Biology at the University of Applied Sciences Lausitz (now called Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences) | |
| since 2007 | Professor for the Physiology of adult neurogenesis in the Department of Physiology of the Medical School at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich | |
| since 2007 | Mentor in the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes | |
| 2016 | Recipient of the "Felix-Jerusalem-Preis" of the Deutschen Gesellschaft für Muskelkranke e.V. (https://www.dgm.org/) for work on the development and pathology of the neuromuscular junction | |