Professor Dr Axel Brakhage completed his doctorate at the Institute of Microbiology at the University of Muenster, Germany and the Institut de Biologie Physico-Chimique in Paris, France. He then transitioned to working in industry with BASF SE in Germany before moving on to the University of Sheffield, UK financed by a postdoc stipend from the German Research Foundation (DFG). He continued his work as an Assistant Professor at the University of Munich, Germany. In 1998, he accepted a call for an Associate Professorship at Darmstadt University of Technology. In 2001, he became Full-Professor at the University of Hanover and in 2004 Full-Professor at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, with simultaneous appointment to Head of Department and Director of the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology (Leibniz-HKI) in Jena, Germany. Professor Brakhage is the spokesperson of the interdisciplinary consortium InfectControl as well as of the Cluster of Excellence 'Balance of the Microverse'. He serves the scientific community in several positions and was most recently elected vice president of the DFG and senator of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.