He received in 2000 the Research Award of the Phytochemical Society of Europe. Over the last 30+ years, he has worked on plants like Ginkgo biloba, Taxus baccata and Rubia tinctorum but was also involved in chemical ecology, e.g., pheromones for crop protection. Currently, his research focuses on the application of ambient mass spectrometry and low-field NMR for fast qualitative and quantitative analyses like quality control of drugs and essential oils, food safety, natural dyes, forensics and surfaces for sensing. He cooperates with Prof. Bo Chen (Changsha) on Quality Control of Traditional Chinese Medicines. He has over 15,000 citations and an H-Index of 57 (Google Scholar) through 220 papers, book chapters and edited journal issues. He has 5 patents and supervised more than 20 PhD students besides many post-docs, technicians and MSc students and presented lectures at 50+ international conferences.