Born 1969 in Stuttgart. Study of chemistry at the Universities of Stuttgart and Heidelberg. Research student at the University of Bristol (UK) and Cambridge (UK). Diploma in chemistry in 1995 at the University of Heidelberg, doctorate at the University of Heidelberg/EMBL Grenoble (France) in 1998. Predoctoral fellow in Grenoble (France) from 1995 to 1998, postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University (USA) from 1999 to 2001. Tenure-track professor of biochemistry at the University of Munich from 2001 to 2003. Professor of biochemistry at the University of Munich from 2004 to 2014. Director of the Gene Center of the University of Munich (LMU) from 2004 to 2013. Director at the Max Planck Institute of Biophysical Chemistry (2014-2021), since 2022 Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences. Member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina as well as the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) and, since 2020, also of the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS). President of the Max Planck Society from June 2023.