Ackermann, Martin
Professor
Department of Biology
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich
Switzerland
Biography
since March 2006 Martin Ackermann has been SNF Professor and since August 2008 Associate Professor of Molekular Microbial Ecology at ETH Zurich. Martin Ackermann was born in Schwyz in 1971. He studied Biology at the University of Basel and did his PhD with Urs Jenal and Steve Stearns in Basel on the evolution of aging. After his PhD he worked for two years as a postdoc with Lin Chao at UC San Diego. In 2004 he joined Sebastian Bonhoeffer's group at ETH Zurich. Martin Ackermann's group uses experimental evolution with bacteria to investigate fundamental questions about evolutionary biology. The main focus is on phenotypic variation - phenotypic differences between individuals with or without underlying genetic differences. The group investigates how selection acts on the mechanisms that control the level of phenotypic variation, and how the level of phenotypic variation can influence the course of evolution. A second area of research is the evolutionary origin of aging. Experiments with bacteria are used together with theoretical models to investigate when and why aging originated in the history of life.
Research Interest
Evolutionary biology
Publications
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Inflammation boosts bacteriophage transfer between Salmonella spp. Diard M, Bakkeren E, Cornuault JK, Moor K, Hausmann A, Sellin ME, Loverdo C, Aertsen A, Ackermann M, De Paepe M, Slack E, Hardt WD. Science. 2017 Mar 17;355(6330):1211-1215. doi: 10.1126/science.aaf8451. Epub 2017 Mar 16
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A passive mutualistic interaction promotes the evolution of spatial structure within microbial populations. Marchal M, Goldschmidt F, Derksen-Müller SN, Panke S, Ackermann M, Johnson DR. BMC Evol Biol. 2017 Apr 24;17(1):106. doi: 10.1186/s12862-017-0950-y
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Accumulation of Deleterious Mutations During Bacterial Range Expansions. Bosshard L, Dupanloup I, Tenaillon O, Bruggmann R, Ackermann M, Peischl S, Excoffier L. Genetics. 2017 Aug 16. pii: genetics.300144.2017. doi: 10.1534/genetics.117.300144
