Professor Wessjohann studied Chemistry in Hamburg (Germany) and Southampton (UK) based on a talented students scholarship. He earned his doctorate in 1990 in the lab of Prof. de Meijerein Hamburg with an interim "sandwich" stay in Oslo (N) with Prof. Skatteb l, as recipient of a Royal Norwegian Postdoctoral Fellowship, working on cyclopropane and amino acid syntheses. After having completedhis doctorate in 1990, he went as a lecturer to Brazil (v.i. for details). This was followed by a postdoctoral stay in Stanford University (USA) as a Feodor-Lynen fellow of the Alexander von Humboldtfoundation working on the total synthesis of the anticancer drug Taxol in the lab of Prof. Paul Wender. Back in Germany, he habilitated (cf. Ass. Prof.) at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (LMU, 1992-1998) in organic chemistry working onorganometallic chemistry and biocatalysis research. In 1997, hewas appointed to the Chair of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (NL), where he worked from1998 to 2000. In 2000, he was offered full professorships at the universities of Stuttgart, Bayreuth and Halle, the latter in combination with the position as director of Department of Bioorganic Chemistry at the Leibniz Institute of Plant Biochemistry (IPB), which he accepted. Since 2010heis the Managing Director of the IPB (www.ipb-halle.de/en), an independent higher research and education institute of the Leibniz association (www.leibniz-gemeinschaft.de).Prof. Wessjohann s current research (2014) focuses on bioactive compound research: from their discovery, mostly based on natural products, to their production by synthesis or biotransformations, mostly based on self developed methods, and their optimization through understanding their interaction with the protein targets: Synthetic Methodology: Multicomponent reactions (MCRs), especially to obtain bioactive peptidomimetics. Synthesis and biological role of organo-selenides and oligophosphates. Synthesis of probes to study biosystems. Biotransformations: cascade biocatalysis, chemoenzymatics, synthetic biology, enzymatic mechanisms Bioactive compounds development usingmedicinal, food and agricultural chemistry: assay development, compound optimization. Natural products from plantsand fungi - from discovery to application. This work includes metabolomics research, development of analytical tools for spectroscopy and informatics, isolation and characterization. Computational chemistry: 3D-protein-modelling, enzymatic mechanisms, inhibitor and ligand design, docking & QSAR, bioinformatics & chemoinformaticsProf. Wessjohanns engagement with Brazil already started 25 years ago (1990), when he was a lecturer at UFSM and advisor for a Brazilian-German bilateral program. He returned several times as a visiting professor to UFSM (1993, 1995 etc.). From 1997, together with Prof. A.L. Braga, he succeeded to run two very successful DAAD-CAPES Probral programs on organochalcogen chemistry for almost a decade, linking UFSM and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, later also involving the Free University Amsterdam, UFSC and the Leibniz-IPB. More then 12 sandwich PhDs resulted, with students and senior scientists from Brazil and Europe visiting the counterpart labs. This experience inspired many Brazilians but also some Europeans to start their independent career in Brazil. Overall, almost 30 Brazilian researchers passed the Wessjohann labs during their career as postdocs, Ph.D.-students or sandwich-PhDs, while also many German and Dutch researchers were send to Brazil to gain knowledge there.Prof. Wessjohann cooperates and cooperated with Unicamp (natural products, synthesis), USP (various topics), UFRGS (organometallics, organochalcogens), U. Sao Carlos & UnB (MCR), UFRJ/NPPN/FioCruz (natural products, biotransformations), UFPE (total synthesis), UNESP (pharmaceuticals), UFSM/UNIFRA/UFSC (Organochalcogens), etc. producing more
