[1] He was also part of the East German team that finished third in the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay at the 1977 European Aquatics Championships.

After retiring from swimming, between 1984 and 1990 he studied human medicine at the Humboldt University in Berlin, defending his PhD in 1990.

In 1999 he obtained his habilitation degree in anatomy and cell biology from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, where he worked between 1997 and 2007.

His thesis title was "The cycle of small synaptic vesicles".

[2] In 2007 he was appointed as a full professor of anatomy at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières in Canada.