You are stranded on the website of Konrad Förstner, a human being mainly interested in IT, science, exploring the world and meeting cool people while doing his PhD in the field of Bioinformatics.

Konrad Förstner
Bork Group, Computation and Structional Biology Unit
European Molecular Biology Laboratory
Meyerhofstrasse 1
69117 Heidelberg
Germany
Phone: +49 6221-387-372
Email: konrad [DOT] foerstner [AT] embl [DOT] de (or via my EMBL contact form)
Instant messaging and VoIP contact data on request (open standards only!)

• Metagenomics (aka Environmental/Community Genomics) and Comparative genomics
• Open science and application of new web technologies in science

• since Sept. 2004: PhD in the group of Peer Bork (Structural and Computational Biology) at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Heidelberg, Germany
• 2004: Diploma thesis "Phylogenetic analysis of the general stress response in bacteria" (in German) at the Department for Microbial Physiology and Molecular Biology of Prof. Michael Hecker
• 2003: Two month programming project at the Southwest Biotechnology and Informatics Center (SWBIC), New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, USA
• 2002: Started with computer science as additional minor subject.
• 2002: Three month research project at the Biotechnology R&D Department of the Lonza Group, Visp, Switzerland
• 1999: Started to study Biochemisty at the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-University (EMAU), Greifswald, Germany
• 1999: Finished school ("Abitur") at the Gymnasium am Kattenberge (GaK), Buchholz (close to Hamburg), Germany
• 1980: Born in Heidelberg, Germany

• A Molecular Study of Microbe Transfer between Distant Environments Hooper SD, Raes J, Foerstner KU, Harrington ED, Dalevi D, Bork P PloS ONE 2008 3(7): e2607 [Full text at PloS ONE]
• Get the most out of your metagenome: computational analysis of environmental sequence data. Raes J, Foerstner KU, Bork P Curr Opin Microbiol. 2007 Oct 11; [Pubmed] [download]
• Splicing factors stimulate polyadenylation via USEs at non-canonical 3' end formation signals. Danckwardt S, Kaufmann I, Gentzel M, Foerstner KU, Gantzert AS, Gehring NH, Neu-Yilik G, Bork P, Keller W, Wilm M, Hentze MW, Kulozik AE EMBO J. 2007 Apr 26; [Epub ahead of print] [Pubmed] [Full text at PumMed Central]
• The sigmaB regulon in Staphylococcus aureus and its regulation. Pane-Farre J, Jonas B, Förstner K, Engelmann S, Hecker M Int J Med Microbiol. 2006 Aug ; 296(4-5): 237-58 [Pubmed]
• Comparative analysis of environmental sequences: potential and challenges. Foerstner KU, von Mering C, Bork P Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2006 Mar 29; 361(1467): 519-23 [Pubmed] [Full text at PubMed Central]
• Environments shape the nucleotide composition of genomes. Foerstner KU, von Mering C, Hooper SD, Bork P EMBO Rep. 2005 Dec ; 6(12): 1208-13 [PubMed] [Full text at PubMed Central]

• Sports; mainly WingTsun (詠春), WingTsun-ChiKung, running and Parkour
• Messing around on my Unix machines, programming, blogging and more of this nerdy computer stuff
• CouchSurfing
• OpenStreetMap (too rarely)
• Scouting (not too active at the moment)
• Playing the piano (currently infrequently)