Alex received his BSc and MSc from the University of Hannover, Germany. In 2004, he began his graduate studies under the guidance of Prof. Peter H. Seeberger at the ETH Zürich, Switzerland. After completing his PhD thesis in 2009, Alex moved to The Scripps Research Institute in San Diego where he worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Benjamin Cravatt. In August 2013, Alex joined the University of Geneva in Switzerland as an Assistant Professor. In November 2017, he joined the Department of Chemistry of The Scripps Research Institute Florida as an Associate Professor. The institute joined UF in April 2022 to become UF Scripps Biomedical Research.