Rolf Müller

Prof. Dr. Rolf Müller studied Pharmacy at the University of Bonn from 1986-1990, received his approbation as a pharmacist in 1991 and finished his PhD on a pharmaceutical-microbiological topic in 1994. From 1996-1997 he spent two years as a DFG research scholar at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA and returned to Germany in 1998 as a junior group leader at the former German Research Centre for Biotechnology (GBF). In 2000, he completed his habilitation thesis at the Technical University Braunschweig about the biosynthesis of antibiotics in actinomycetes and myxobacteria. Since October 2003, Rolf Müller holds a chair as professor of pharmaceutical biotechnology at Saarland University and in 2009 he became managing director of the newly founded Helmholtz-Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS). Furthermore, he heads the department of “Microbial Natural Products” (MINS) and co-founded the PharmBioTec GmbH in Saarbrücken. Rolf Müller’s research is dedicated to the chemistry and biology of microbial natural products with an emphasis on myxobacteria. Using an interdisciplinary research setting his group focusses on the identification, modification and pharmaceutical development of new anti-infectives exhibiting innovative mode of action. Rolf Müller received the Phoenix-Pharmacy Research Award (2001, 2007, and 2016), the DECHEMA Award for Natural Products Research (2002), the BioFuture Award of the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (2003) and the DECHEMA Award of the Max-Buchner Research Foundation (2010). He was elected member of the National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech) in 2012 and member of the National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina) in 2016. In May 2018, Rolf Müller received the Inhoffen Medal which is awarded by the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) and the Technical University (TU) Braunschweig.