Synthetic Biodegradable and Biobased Polymers

Prof. Dr. Bernhard Rieger studied chemistry at LMU München and received his PhD in 1988. After research stays at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and in the plastics laboratory of BASF SE, he received his habilitation at the University of Tübingen in 1995 and became Professor Ordinarius at the Department of Materials and Catalysis at the University of Ulm. In 2006, he was appointed as full professor at TUM. Since then, he holds the WACKER-Chair of Macromolecular Chemistry and works as the director of the Institute of Silicon Chemistry at TUM. He received - amongst others - the Philip-Morris Award 2006 and the Wöhler-Award for Sustainable Chemistry in 2013.

Prof. Dr. Andreas Künkel studied biology at the Philipps University Marburg and received his Ph.D. in 1998 at the Max Planck Institute for terrestrial microbiology. Afterwards he started his BASF career within the Central R&D department, followed by marketing positions for Fine Chemicals and ecoflex ^® & ecovio ^® with focus on strategy and New Business Development. Since 2010 he is head of biodegradable and biobased polymer research of BASF. The focus of this research is the fundamental understanding of the biodegradation process in different environments and the development of new biodegradable and biobased polyesters and compounds for different applications. He is teaching at the University of Marburg.

Priv.-Doz. Dr. Malte Winnacker received his diploma (chemistry) at the University of Würzburg (2006) and his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in 2010 (Prof. T. Carell). Then he served as a postdoctoral DAAD fellow at Stanford University (USA) with Prof. Dr. Eric T. Kool (until 2012). Since 2013 he is a scientist and lecturer at the WACKER-Chair of Macromolecular Chemistry at Technische Universität München (Habilitation in 2018). His main research interests are synthesis and applications of sustainable polymers from renewable resources, as well as different biomacromolecules and biomaterials for applications in biology and medicine. He obtained - amongst others - the Max-Buchner-Forschungsstipendium from DECHEMA e.V. in 2018 and a research grant of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) in 2020.

Dr. Glauco Battagliarin is a laboratory leader and Research Scientist Biopolymers at BASF SE.

Prof. Dr. Geoffrey Coates obtained his B.A. at Wabash College and his Ph.D. at Stanford University. Afterwards, he served as a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology. Currently he is the Tisch University Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Cornell University, USA. His teaching and research interests involve science at the interface of organic, inorganic and materials chemistry. It includes benign polymers and chemical synthesis, the utilization of renewable resources and materials safe and ecological energy storage and conversion. He obtained- amongst others- the Award in Applied Polymer Chemistry of the American Chemical Society in 2015, and he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2017.