Prof. Dr. Jörn Piel
Prof. Dr. Jörn Piel
Full Professor at the Department of Biology
Deputy head of Institute of Microbiology
Additional information
Research area
Jörn Piel's research focuses on the origin, ecology, and activity of natural products. Using biological and chemical methods, his research group investigates how organisms such as bacterial communities in marine sponges synthesize these often complex substances. This knowledge is then applied in Synthetic Biology to produce compounds that are difficult to obtain from Nature. Such natural products are of great interest for the development of drugs used in antiinfective or anticancer therapy.
Jörn Piel is a full professor of Microbial Interactions at the Institute of Microbiology since February 2013.
He was born in Germany, in 1967.
Jörn Piel studied chemistry at the University of Bonn, Germany. From 1995-1998 he conducted his PhD work in Bonn with Prof. W. Boland, studying biosynthesis and regulation of natural products involved in plant signaling. As an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellow (1998-1999) he worked on biosynthetic pathways of marine bacteria in the laboratory of Prof. B. S. Moore and Prof. H. G. Floss at the University of Washington, Seattle. From 1999-2004 he headed a junior research group at the Max Planck Institute of Chemical Ecology, Jena, Germany, and obtained the habilitation at the University of Jena in 2004. In the same year he was appointed a C3 (Assistant) Professor at the Kekulé Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Bonn, Germany. 2013 he was appointed as a Full Professor at ETH Zurich at the Institute of Microbiology.
Honours
| Year | Distinction |
|---|---|
| 2023 | David Gottlieb Memorial Lecture Award, University of Illinois, USA |
| 2023 | Hans-Herloff Inhoffen Medal |
| 2022 | ETH Dandelion Award |
| 2022 | ETH Spark Award |
| 2020 | Elected member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina |
| 2020 | Gordon and Betty Moore Investigator Award |
| 2017 | ERC Advanced Grant |
| 2004 | DECHEMA Young Investigator Award for Natural Product Research |
| 2004 | Matt Suffness Award of the American Society of Pharmacognosy |
| 2004 | Thuringian Reseach Award |
Course Catalogue
Spring Semester 2025
| Number | Unit |
|---|---|
| 551-0314-00L | Microbiology (Part II) |
| 551-0605-00L | Ethics and Scientific Integrity for Doctoral Students of the MIM PhD Program |
| 551-1103-00L | Microbial Biochemistry |
| 551-1106-00L | Progress Reports in Microbiology and Immunology |
| 551-1109-00L | Seminars in Microbiology |
| 551-1147-00L | Bioactive Natural Products from Bacteria |
| 551-1324-00L | Biochemistry |