Tobias Erb

Tobias J. Erb is a synthetic biologist and Director at the Max Planck Institute for terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg, Germany. Erb studied Chemistry and Biology at the University of Freiburg (D) and the Ohio State University (US). After stays at the University of Illinois (US) and ETH Zürich (CH), Tobi Erb moved to the Max Planck Institute in Marburg, where he was promoted to Director in 2017.

Erb received numerous awards, among them the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize of the German Research Foundation and the Otto Bayer Award. He was named one of 12 up- and coming scientists by American Chemical Society’s C&EN and elected to the “Junge Akademie” at the National Academy of Science. Tobi Erb serves as expert on the working groups “Artificial Photosynthesis” and “Life Sciences” at the German National Academy of Sciences. Research in the lab of Tobi Erb centers on the discovery, function and engineering of novel CO2 converting enzymes and their use in engineered and artificial photosynthesis, as well as the bottom-up design of synthetic chloroplasts and cells.