Markus is now a visiting group leader at the Crick. In 2018 he became Einstein Professor of Biochemistry, and is Head of Biochemistry at the Charitè University Medicine (the joint medical faculty of Humboldt and Free state Universities in Berlin, Germany). Previously, he was the recipient of a Wellcome Trust Research career development fellowship and a Wellcome-Beit prize, at the Department of Biochemistry and the Cambridge Systems Biology Centre, University of Cambridge.
The Ralser lab is known for fundamental discoveries that have improved our understanding on how cells can coordinate hundreds of biochemical reactions assembled in the metabolic network. These show that metabolism is much more flexible and integrated into physiology of cells as it was expected only a few years ago. In particular, results obtained in the Ralser lab have provided fundamental insights on how central carbon metabolism could have evolved in early life forms (driving the structure of modern metabolism), how reactions can co-occur within a cell despite competing chemistries, and how yeast and cancer cells reconfigure metabolism to be protected against oxidative stress.
