Gerben joined Andrew Millar's lab at the Centre for Systems Biology at Edinburgh, where he contributed to the discovery of purely non-transcriptional circadian rhythms across eukaryotes. He then secured a University Research Fellowship from the Royal Society, London, to continue to study cellular timekeeping. Gerben's lab employ the model plant Arabidopsis and the unicellular alga Ostreococcus tauri. The latter is used as a starting point for comparative biology of clocks across all eukaryotes, in various collaborations. Outside the lab, Gerben is a keen home brewer, plays the drums, enjoys running and spending time with his family.