Thomas Hohn

Biography

Thomas Hohn is Professor em. at the Botanical Inistitute, University Basel. He is Austrian, has studied in at the Max-Planck Institute of Tubingen and performed postdoctoral studies in Stanford, California. He was junior group leader at the Bicocenter of the University Basel and group leader at the Friedrich Miescher Institute Basel. His interests are in virology, originally of bacteriophages, where he studied self-assembly of small bacteriophages as well as morphogenesis of bacteriophage. The latter work, performed together with his wife lead to DNA-packaging. Later he shifted to plant viruses, where he recognized the first plant pararetrovirus (CaMV) and detected special viral translation strategies. Recently he became interested in the topic of RNA-interference and in transgenesis. He has published more than 200 papers during his career. Since several years he is involved in the IndoSwiss collaboration in Biotechnology project, working together with Indian scientists to apply biotechnology for the improvement of pulses (leguminosae) and Cassava for the use by subsistent farmers. Privately he likes snow, mountains, white water, foreign continents and photography.

Research Interest

His interests are in virology, originally of bacteriophages, where he studied self-assembly of small bacteriophages as well as morphogenesis of bacteriophage.