Simon completed his undergraduate and graduate studies at ETH Zurich as a scholar of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation. He is fascinated by the complexity of biological systems, the way nature has come up with intricate designs, and the possibility of engineering biology to help solve urgent challenges.

During his studies, he conducted research on metabolic engineering for autonomous genetic code expansion in E. coli at the D-BSSE of ETH Zurich. For his master’s thesis, he joined the laboratory of Prof. Hiroaki Suga at the University of Tokyo, where he focused on RiPP enzymology in combination with mRNA display–based drug discovery. He also contributed to developing methods for in silico chloroplast genome design at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology.

At GBI, his research focuses on advancing genome synthesis technologies with the aim of expanding our design capabilities at the organismal scale.

Outside work, Simon enjoys playing all kinds of sports, reading philosophy and traveling