The Grim(m) Story: Far from a Fairy Tale

Born in 1963, Grimm was a talented scientist. He devoted his entire career to decoding molecular mechanisms involved in apoptotic cell death. Grimm completed his PhD in biology at Eberhard-Karls University of Tübingen in Germany in 1994. A year later he started his research fellowship in the laboratory of geneticist Philip Leder in the department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. After completing his PhD, Grimm moved back to Germany in 1998 and started his independent research group at the department of Biochemistry at the Max-Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Munich. Here he succeeded in developing a robotic high-throughput assay for isolating apoptosis-inducing genes. His colleagues at the institute described him as a “highly dedicated scientist, insightful group leader and friendly and obliging colleague.” Soon after, Grimm co-founded Xantos Biomedicine AG, a leading functional biology and drug discovery company and served on its scientific advisory board until 2006.