He studied General Chemistry at the University of Regensburg, German, where he received his PhD in Analytical Chemistry and Isotope Sciences in 1994 as a PhD scholar of Klaus Heumann. After 13 years of Life Science research at ETH Zurich at the Laboratory of Human Nutrition he joined NUS in 2007 where he is heading NutriTrace@NUS, a research group dedicated to the tracing of mineral and trace element metabolism in animals and humans using stable isotope techniques with a special focus on iron and calcium in health and disease.