Professor Christoph Kratky, University of Graz, Austria, celebrates his 65th birthday on the 25th of December. Kratky is a leading researcher in the crystallographic structure determination of biomolecules and a board member of the Austrian Science Foundation.

Christoph Kratky studied chemistry and got his Ph.D. at the ETH Zurich, Switzerland. He spent a year as a post-doctoral researcher in the group of Professor Martin Karplus, Harvard University, USA, before becoming a University Assistant at the Institute of Physical Chemistry, University of Graz, Austria. He obtained his habilitation in 1985 from the University of Graz and was promoted to Full Professor there in 1995. He is currently at the Institute of Molecular Biosciences where his research interests focus on enzymes relevant for biocatalysis such as esterases, xylanases, oxygenases, and in particular the B₁₂ cofactor, both in its free and enzyme-bound state.

More recently, his research has focused on structure elucidation of protein components of the lipid metabolism, by using a combination of molecular biology, bioinformatics and structural biology.

• High-resolution neutron crystallographic studies of the hydration of the coenzyme cob(II)alamin
  G. Jogl, X. Wang, S. A. Mason, A. Kovalevsky, M. Mustyakimov, Z. Fisher, C. Hoffman, C. Kratky, P. Langan
  Acta Crystallogr., Sect. D: Biol. Crystallogr. 2011, 67(6), 584–591.
  DOI: 10.1107/S090744491101496X
• A Crystalline B₁₂ Dimer from β-Cyano-Neocobyrate
  S. Murtaza, P. Butler, C. Kratky, K. Gruber, B. Kräutler,
  Chem. Eur. J. 2008, 14(25), 7521–7524.
  DOI: 10.1002/chem.200800809