Born 1961 in Rott/Inn, Germany. Studies of biology and chemistry at the Technical University of Munich (1980- 1986), PhD (1988) and German Habilitation (1995) in microbiology, TU Munich, postdoc at the University of Illinois (1988-89), Assistant at the TU Munich (1990-1996), Head of the Independent Junior Research Group "Microbial Ecology" at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology (1997-2001), Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Professor of Biology, University of Bremen (since 2001) as well as Chairperson of the Biology & Medicine Section of the Max Planck Society (2014-2017).