Modern Avenues in Metal-Nucleic Acid Chemistry

Jens Mueller holds a Chair of Inorganic Chemistry (2018) at the Department of Chemistry and Pharmacy, Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universitaet Muenster, Germany. He obtained his doctoral degree (1999, summa cum laude) from the Technische Universitaet Dortmund, working with Bernhard Lippert. After a postdoctoral stay in the groups of Stephen J. Lippard (MIT) and Gerhard Wagner (Harvard Medical School), he started his independent career at the Technische Universitaet Dortmund in 2002, funded by the prestigious Emmy Noether Programme. After having received his Habilitation in 2008, he became Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universitaet Muenster. His research focuses on the bioinorganic chemistry of nucleic acids, with a particular interest in metal-mediated base pairing. He was Dean of Student Affairs from 2011-2014, Chair of the European research initiative COST Action CM1105 ("Functional metal complexes that bind to biomolecules"), and guest Editor of several themed issues of chemistry journals. Since 2018, he has served as the Editor of Inorganica Chimica Acta. He is the Chair of EuroBIC-17 (2024 in Muenster, Germany).

Bernhard Lippert retired in 2011 from Chair of Bioinorganic Chemistry at the Technische Universitaet Dortmund, Germany. He received his Ph.D. degree from Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM), Germany, in 1974. Following a postdoctoral stay with Barnett Rosenberg at the Biophysics Department of Michigan State University, USA, he started his independent research at TUM, which was focused on fundamental aspects of interactions of metal species, notably of Pt, with nucleobases, as well as supramolecular constructs derived from these components. During his career at TUM, the University of Freiburg, Germany, and TU Dortmund, he has trained 70 PhD students and in addition numerous Bachelor and Master students as well as postdoctoral fellows, a fair number of whom eventually earned academic positions. Results of his group's work are documented in over 400 refereed scientific articles and have been communicated at many international conferences and lectureships. He served the community as Editorial Board member of several journals (Inorg. Chem., Dalton Trans., Inorg. Chim. Acta, J. Biol. Inorg. Chem., Biometals), and was the Editor of Inorg. Chim. Acta from 2008 to 2019. He was (Co)-Editor of a number of themed issues in chemistry journals, and Editor of the book Cisplatin: Chemistry and Biochemistry of a Leading Anticancer Drug, which reviewed the knowledge on Pt antitumor complexes at the turn of the century. He has been involved in the management of European research activities in the COST frame, has been the Secretary of EuroBIC conferences for 11 years and has organized numerous scientific meetings such as the "EURESCO Research conference on the Inorganic Side of Molecular Architecture" (2002), EuroBIC-7 (2004), and "4th EuCheMS Conference on Nitrogen Ligands" (2008), among others. Since 2014 he has been an Honorary Member of the Society of Biological Inorganic Chemistry (SBIC).