finally another Dr. rer. nat.: Martin Bonin received his doctoral certificate and hat for his thesis on subsite occupation and preferences in chitin deacetylases

Today, finally, Martin Bonin formally became Dr. Martin Bonin. First, his defence had to be postponed because both written reports evaluated his thesis as “summa cum laude”, necessitating additional evaluation by a third, independent, external reviewer. When she also decided for a “summa”, Martin was allowed to defend, and he did so successfully: again “summa”. But when the time came for the hooding ceremony, Martin fell sick, so this also had to be postponed. But today, finally! After the piano pieces introduced and performed by Dr. Robert Klapper without which no-one can graduate to Dr. in our Faculty, Martin and his fellow doctoral candidates recited the solemn pledge prescribed by our doctoral regulations and sealed it with a handshake to the Dean. Typically, and equally importantly, this would have been followed shortly afterwards by his baptism in the inner courtyard’s pond in our institute to validate the doctoral degree. But this time-honoured part of the doctoral ceremony, Martin had already preponed to directly after his defence. Also, he already started the next step of his career when he joined Prof. Till Ischebeck’s group in our institute as a post-doctoral researcher. With his thorough knowledge and experience in both molecular biochemistry and bioinformatics, Martin is well prepared for this career, and we are looking forward to finding out what his next steps will be.