Speakers

Bio

Uwe Bornscheuer is Professor at the University of Greifswald and head of the Dept. of Biotechnology & Enzyme Catalysis at the Institute of Biochemistry. He studied chemistry at the University of Hannover and graduated in 1990 with his diploma followed by his PhD obtained from the same university in 1993 at the Institute of Technical Chemistry. He then pursued a postdoctoral stay at the University of Nagoya in 1993/94. Afterwards, he moved back to Germany and finished his habilitation in 1998 at the Institute of Technical Biochemistry at the University of Stuttgart. Since 1999, he has been Professor at Greifswald University.

His research focuses on enzyme discovery and especially their engineering via rational design and directed evolution combined with the development of high-throughput methods. Applications include the synthesis of chiral compounds, enzymes useful for protection and deprotection, but also basic research topics dealing with the understanding of proteases relevant in certain diseases, the degradation of marine polysaccharides and also the depolymerization of plastics like PET and polyurethanes. 

Bornscheuer has received several awards for his research in the biocatalysis field such as the Biocat2008 Award, the Enzyme Engineering Award in 2022, a Honorary Doctorate of the KTH (Stockholm, Sweden, 2025) and the Otto Roelen Medal of the German Catalysis Society (2026). Bornscheuer has published >650 papers in peer-reviewed journals, >40 book chapters, wrote/edited 10 books, and filed over 60 patent applications. So far, 85 PhD students have graduated from his group.

Photo credit: University of Greifswald Press Office

Bio

Matthias Beller, born 1962 in Gudensberg, Germany, studied chemistry at the University of Göttingen, where he completed his PhD thesis in 1989 in the group of L.-F. Tietze. As recipient of a Liebig scholarship, he spent one year with K. B. Sharpless at MIT, USA. From 1991 to 1995, Beller worked in industry. Then, he moved to the Technical University of München as Professor for Inorganic Chemistry. In 1998, he relocated to Rostock to head the Institute for Organic Catalysis and became the founding director of the Leibniz-Institute for Catalysis in 2006. Since 2023, he is part of the Board of Scientific Directors of LIKAT.

The work of his group has been published in more than 1240 original publications, reviews and >150 patent applications have been filed (H-index: >170). Since 2014, he is constantly on the list of “Highly Cited Researchers" (among the top 1% of researchers with most cited documents in a specific field). Several of the catalysts developed by his group and him are used in industry in “real world” processes.

Matthias Beller is a member of the German National Academia of Science “Leopoldina” and three other Academies of Sciences.

Photo credit: LIKAT

Bio

Prof. Anna Sobek is Professor of Environmental Chemistry and Head of the Department of Environmental Science at Stockholm University. Her research focuses on the environmental fate, distribution, and risks of organic contaminants, with particular emphasis on aquatic ecosystems and the interactions between environmental chemistry, ecotoxicology, and biogeochemistry. Prof. Sobek studied biology and chemistry at Uppsala University and completed her PhD at Stockholm University in 2005. She subsequently held a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship in Zürich, Switzerland, and returned to Stockholm University after working a few years in environmental management. She was promoted to professor in 2020. Some of her recent work spans contaminant behaviour in sediments of rivers and oceans as well as toxicity and uptake of chemical mixtures in aquatic organisms. 

Photo credit: Rickard Kilström

Bio

Aurélien de la Torre was born and raised in Montpellier, France. There, he obtained his PhD in 2014, working on the total synthesis of isofuranoids under the supervision of Dr. Camille Oger and Dr. Jean-Marie Galano. After a first postdoctoral position in the group of Prof. Nuno Maulide (University of Vienna) and a second one in the group of Prof. Ilan Marek (Technion – Israel Institute of Technology), he was appointed as Chargé de Recherche CNRS at the Institut de Chimie Moléculaire et des Matériaux d’Orsay (ICMMO, University of Paris-Saclay). His research interests include total synthesis, enantioselective catalysis, cascade reactions and rearrangements. He is the recipient of the 2024 Young Investigator award from the EuChemS, the 2025 Jean-Pierre Sauvage award from the French Chemical Society, obtained the CNRS Bronze medal in 2025 as well as an ERC Consolidator Grant.

Photo Credit: Website

Bio

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