Cell scientist to watch – Alexandra Stolz

ABSTRACT Alexandra Stolz is a Group Leader at the Institute of Biochemistry II [Frankfurt am Main (a.M.), Germany] and the head of the phenotypic screening platform at the Frankfurt Competence Center of Emerging Therapeutics (Frankfurt a.M., Germany). She received her Diploma from the University of Regensburg (Germany), followed by a PhD at the University of Stuttgart (Germany) under the supervision of the late Dieter Wolf, where she studied the endoplasmic reticulum-associated protein degradation (ERAD) pathway. For her postdoctoral work, Alexandra moved to the Goethe-University Frankfurt (Germany), where she worked with Andreas Ernst and Ivan Dikic to investigate the role of autophagy in ER homeostasis. After spending a year at Genentech (USA) as a visiting scientist, in February 2018, she moved to the Frankfurt Competence Center for Emerging Therapeutics (Germany) to lead the phenotypic screening platform. Since January 2021, she has also been a group leader associated with the Institute of Biochemistry II and located at the Buchman Institute for Molecular Life Sciences (Frankfurt, Germany). We spoke with Alexandra over Zoom to learn more about her career, her approach to mentoring and her love of dancing.