Klaus Scheffzek, former EMBL Heidelberg Team Leader, passed away on Saturday 15 November 2025 at the age of 67.
“Our colleague and EMBL alumnus Klaus Scheffzek passed away on 15 November 2025. Klaus was a member of the Structural and Computational Biology (SCB) Unit at EMBL, first as a staff scientist, and later as team leader from 1999 to 2011. He then took on a Professorship at the Medical University Innsbruck, where he led the Institute for Biological Chemistry at the Innsbruck Biozentrum until his retirement in 2022.
Throughout his career, Klaus used structural biology, particularly X-ray crystallography, to illuminate enzymatic mechanisms and molecular switches and to explore their roles in human disease. His seminal work offered pioneering insights into the structure and function of the proto-oncogene Ras, GTPase-activating proteins (GAPs), Neurofibromin, and the LAMTOR (Ragulator) complex.
Klaus was also a passionate and dedicated teacher and for many years organised the proteomics and structural biology module of the EMBL PhD course taking pride in being voted the most popular course module among EMBL PhD students. He also established a very popular seminar series on biological structure determination for Master students at the University Heidelberg, which has been running for many years and which he co-organised until this year. Klaus carefully orchestrated this course, and many EMBL group leaders participated in it acquiring additional teaching experience.
Beyond science, Klaus had a deep love of music. Many of us remember his enthusiastic efforts to bring the Heidelberger Frühling music festival to EMBL. The grand piano in the Operon lecture theatre stands as a lasting testament to his initiative and commitment to enriching EMBL’s cultural life. Klaus leaves behind his wife, Gabi, and his extended family. We will remember him as a passionate scientist and teacher, a caring colleague, and a close friend of EMBL.”
Christoph Müller, current EMBL Heidelberg Group Leader and Senior Scientist
Sebastian Eustermann, current EMBL Heidelberg Group Leader
“I was saddened to learn of Klaus’s untimely passing. I first met him in 2001, when I was an undergraduate student at Heidelberg University taking his course on X-ray protein crystallography, then held at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research. After we had spent three intense weeks solving and building the structure of hen egg lysozyme, I approached him with my own project idea. He smiled, invited me to visit him at EMBL (whose existence I did not even know about at the time), sent me to the ‘stores’ for a fresh set of pipettes, and introduced me to his technicians, Fabien Bonneau and Sabine Gemeinhardt, who patiently taught me how to clone and express proteins.
Klaus taught me the first steps in crystallography but also encouraged me to experiment and learn independently, something I still deeply appreciate. The first magical electron density map appeared at the beginning of my PhD at 11 pm, and Klaus was there to look at it and congratulate me. As a PhD student, I enjoyed considerable freedom from him to pursue projects far from his own research focus on human tumour suppressors, an opportunity that greatly benefited my later career in plant science. To this day, I continue to rely on the expert training in data processing and analysis that he provided, and I have shaped my own approach to teaching around his example.
I was glad to hear that in 2022 he achieved his ultimate career goal: determining the three-dimensional structure of the giant tumour suppressor protein NF1. My condolences go out to his wife, family, and colleagues. I will always remember him driving up the hill to EMBL in his old, rusty Golf with the worn “Leipzig kommt” bumper sticker.”
Michael Hothorn, Professor, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Geneva, Switzerland (EMBL Heidelberg Predoc, Scheffzek Team, 2002-2007)
Condolences
If you would like to add a message of condolence for inclusion on the EMBL Alumni Obituaries page, please contact the Alumni Relations team.
