Hans Robert Schöler
Hans Robert Schöler (born 30 January 1953) is a molecular biologist and stem cell researcher. He is director at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Münster. Biography. Hans Schöler was born in 1953 in Toronto, Canada, came to Germany in 1960 and grew up in Paderborn, Munich and Heidelberg. After his studies of Biology at the University of Heidelberg, Schöler conducted the research for his doctoral degree from the University of Heidelberg in 1985 at the Centre for Molecular Biology (ZMBH). After having headed a research group for Boehringer Mannheim at the Research Center Tutzing  and having worked as a staff scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Schöler started as head of a research group at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg in 1991. In 1994, he obtained his habilitation at the Biological Faculty of the Heidelberg University. In 1999, Hans Schöler left Germany to assume a professorship for Reproductive Physiology at the School of Veterinary Medicine University of Pennsylvania, USA. At the same time, he was director of the Center for Animal Transgenesis and Germ Cell Research at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA. From 2000 until  2004, Schöler held the Marion Dilley and David George Jones Chair for Reproductive Medicine. Since 2004, Hans Schöler has been director of the Department Cell and Developmental Biology Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine, Münster. He is professor of the Medical Faculty of the Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster and also adjunct professor of the University of Pennsylvania and the Hannover Medical School. Research. Schöler's major research interests are the molecular biology of cells of the germline (pluripotent cells and germ cells), transcriptional regulation of genes in the mammalian germline, deciphering the molecular processes of reprogramming somatic cells after induction  with transcription factors, nuclear transfer into oocytes, or fusion with pluripotent cells. Nearly 170 of Schöler's publications are listed in the Citation Index. These publications were cited over 12,000 times. His Hirsch-Index is 58 (status December 2013).