Professor Seeberger studied chemistry in Erlangen (Germany) and completed a Ph.D. in biochemistry in Boulder (USA). After a postdoctoral fellowship at the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Research in New York, he advanced to tenured Firmenich Associate Professor of Chemistry at MIT. After six years as Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich he assumed positions as Director at the Max-Planck Institute for Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam and Professor at the Free University of Berlin in 2009. In addition, he serves as honorary Professor at the University of Potsdam. From 2003-2014 he was Affiliate Professor at the Sanford-Burnham Institute for Medical Research (La Jolla, USA).

Professor Seeberger’s research on the chemistry and biology of carbohydrates, carbohydrate vaccine development and continuous flow synthesis of drug substances spans a broad range of topics from engineering to immunology and has been documented in over 500 peer-reviewed journal articles, four books, more than 40 patents, over 200 published abstracts and more than 850 invited lectures. This work was recognized with more than 35 international awards from the US (e.g. Arthur C. Cope Young Scholar Award 2003, Horace B. Isbell Award 2003, Claude S. Hudson Award 2009 from the American Chemical Society), Germany (e.g. Körber Prize for European Sciences 2007, Wissenschaftspreis des Stifterverbandes 2017), Holland (Havinga Medal), Israel (Honorary Lifetime Member Israel Chemical Society), Japan (Yoshimasa Hirata Gold Medal), Switzerland (“The 100 Most Important Swiss”), the Philippines (Gusi Peace Prize 2018) and international organizations (Whistler Award 2012, Int. Carboh. Soc.). In 2013 he was elected to the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences.