Ingemar Pongratz Early Life
Ingemar Pongratz, of Stockholm, Sweden.
Ingemar Pongratz was born in the city of Quito, Ecuador in 1966. Ingemar went to the German School in Guayaquil and Quito before moving to Stockholm, Sweden in 1980. Once in Stockholm, Ingemar once again went to the German School before going into technical Gymnasium. He began at Botvids gymnasium and then moved to Västergårds gymnasium where he studied science and technology.
During these early years of school, Ingemar developed a keen interest in Science and Technology, in particular, the field of Life Sciences. His favourite topic was chemistry, especially organic chemistry and how chemistry is connected to biology. During this time, Ingemar joined extra-curricular activities related to science and research and was one of the co-founders of the Botvids Chapter for Young Scientists.
After Gymnasium, Ingemar Pongratz went to Stockholm University. There he studied chemistry, in particular courses in Biochemistry, Organic chemistry, and Toxicology.
Here Ingemar Pongratz met professor Jan-Åke Gustafsson, one of the most well known Swedish Life Science researchers with more than 1000 peer reviewed scientific articles.
Ingemar Pongratz approached Professor Gustafsson and started to work as a PhD student at the Department for Medical Nutrition for Professor Lorenz Poellinger.
Lorenz Poellinger had then recently returned from a post-doc in the US and was establishing his own independent research profile, focusing on the detrimental effects of environmental pollutants on human health and studying at the molecular level how pollutants like dioxins damage human health.
During his Ph D studies, Ingemar published or co-authored more than 8 scientific articles in high impact peer reviewed journals.
Ingemar successfully defended his Ph D thesis in December 1996 and joined Professor Poellinger in his new position at the Department for Cell and Molecular Biology.
With this move Ingemar Pongratz made some changes in his scientific profile and in addition started to supervise PhD students. His first Ph D student was Dr. Arunas Kazlauskas.
Arunas Kazlauskas proved to be a remarkable student who under Ingemar’s supervision developed into a highly competent scientist who together co-authored several peer reviewed scientific articles in high profile journals with Ingemar.
The second Ph D student supervised by Ingemar Pongratz was Dr. Petra Berg who also developed into a highly competent scientist with several high impact articles.
Ingemar has since worked for the Karolinska Institute, attracting EU funding while continuing to be successful in his research, publishing over 40 reviews and articles in scientific journals. He then established his own consultancy, Pongratz Consulting where he currently works to help clients attain EU research funding.