Bernhard Grimm is Professor of Plant Physiology at the Institute of Biology at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Dean of the Faculty of Life Science. He studied biology at the University of Hannover and performed doctoral studies in the group of Prof. Klaus Kloppstech. He spent five years at a postdoctoral fellow and research assistant in the Department of Prof. Diter von Wettstein at the Carlsberg Laboratory, before he moved as group leader to the Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK) in Gatersleben, Germany. Finally, he was appointed at the Humboldt University in January 2001. His current research interests cover several aspects of photosynthesis and chloroplast biogenesis: tetrapyrrole biosynthesis, plastid-derived retrograde signalling, riboflavin biosynthesis, the assembly of chlorophyll-binding proteins, posttranslational and cotranslational mechanisms in chloroplasts.