Professor Wessjohann studied chemistry in Hamburg (D), Southampton (UK) and Oslo (N). He earned his doctorate 1990 in Hamburg with Professor Dr. Armin de Meijere in co-supervision with Professor Dr. Lars Skattebøl. After a short period as lecturer in Brazil, he became a Feodor-Lynen fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt-foundation with Prof. Dr. Paul Wender at Stanford University (USA) working on the total synthesis of the anticancer drug Taxol®. After an assistant professorship in Munich (LMU, 92-98), he was appointed Chair of Bioorganic Chemistry at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (NL). Since 2001, he is director of the Dept. Bioorganic Chemistry (Natur- und Wirkstoffchemie) at the Leibniz Institute of Plant Biochemistry (IPB) in Halle - Saale (Germany), and in parallel holds the chair of natural product chemistry of the Martin Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg. From 2010-2017 he served as the Managing Director of IPB (www.ipb-halle.de). Prof. Wessjohann focuses on the discovery, synthesis and application of medicinally active compounds and plant protectants based on natural products (see below for details). He was speaker of the science campus “plant based bioeconomy”, is PI of the DAAD/AA (German foreign office) World Health Centre "GLACIER" for Latin America, and a member of many boards and commissions of companies, academia and science organizations, including 2019 the national scientific advisory board “mision de sabios” of the Colombian government for the fields bioeconomy, biotechnology and environment. He received numerous scholarships, prizes and honors, e.g. the Microsoft IT Founders Award, and is a foreign member of the Brazilian Academy of Science. Altogether he has formed some 100 master, diploma and PhD students, has ca. 600 publications with an h-index of 68, i10 >300. He has contributed to 35 patent families and founded 7 start-up companies in scientific IT (e.g. OntoChem GmbH) and drug development. After several successful exits he serves also as start-up advisor. Research areas: >>> Main theme: Molecular Interactions in Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry <<< > Natural Products – from Isolation to Total Synthesis and Bioactivity [incl. Metabolomics, Proteomics] > Biocatalysis and Enzymatic Reactions > New Synthetic Methods, Combinatorial & Medicinal Chemistry, Selective Drug Delivery [Multicomponent Reactions, Pept(o)ides, Macrocycles, Se] > Chemoinformatics > Application Areas: Sources: Plants, Fungi, Human Mind // Application: Cancer, Neuro-Actives, Antibiotics, Rare Diseases, Flavor & Fragrance, Nutraceuticals, Plant Protectants & Phytoeffectors