Biography

In 1996, Markus Geisler completed his doctoral work at the Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf/ Germany characterizing an atypic cyanobacterial Ca-ATPase from the cyanobacterium, Synechocystis PCC 6803.
During two postdoctoral stays with Mickey B. Palmgren (1996-1998) at the University of Copenhagen and Enrico Martinoia (1999-2002) at the University of Neuchâtel, he changed the model organism by characterizing type IIB Ca-ATPases and PGP/ABCB and MRP/ABCC-like ABC transporters in Arabidopsis thaliana, respectively.
From 2002 until 2010, he worked as a group-leader in the lab of Enrico Martinoia at the Institute of Plant Biology, University of Zurich, where he established different members of the Arabidopsis ABCB/PGP family of ABC transporters as auxin transporters. Moreover, he discovered a new mechanism of ABCB and auxin transport regulation by means of protein-protein interaction with the immunophilin-like FKBP42, TWISTED DWARF1.
In 2011 he moved his group to the University of Fribourg where he now focuses on the individual roles of ABCB/PGP auxin transporters in plant physiology, their functional interaction and regulation by protein-protein interaction, by protein phosphorylation, by the cytoskeleton and by modulatory drugs. Since 2014 he holds a permanent lecturer  position.

He is living with his family in Zurich and Fribourg and still supports his beloved football club, Fortuna Düsseldorf.