Roland Benz (born 1943 in

Singen Singen (; Low Alemannic German, Low Alemannic: ''Singe'') is an industrial city in the very south of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany and just north of the German-Swiss border. Location Singen is an industrial city situated in the far sout ...

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg ( ; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a states of Germany, German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million i ...

) is a German

biophysicist Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations ...

Early life and education

Benz studied

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

, and

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

at the

University of Würzburg The Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg (also referred to as the University of Würzburg, in German ''Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg'') is a public research university in Würzburg, Germany. Founded in 1402, it is one of the ol ...

. In 1972, he obtained his Ph.D. in biology, with Peter Läuger at

University of Konstanz The University of Konstanz () is a university in the city of Konstanz in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Its main campus was opened on the Gießberg in 1972 after being founded in 1966. The university is Germany's southernmost university and is ...

as his supervisor; and, in 1977, he obtained his

Habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

Biophysics Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations ...

Career

A Heisenberg Fellow of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) (German Science Foundation), Benz was a

visiting professor In academia, a visiting scholar, visiting scientist, visiting researcher, visiting fellow, visiting lecturer, or visiting professor is a scholar from an institution who visits a host university to teach, lecture, or perform research on a topic fo ...

State University of New York at Stony Brook Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public university, public research university in Stony Brook, New York, United States, on Long Island. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is on ...

(SUNYSB) in 1980 and 1982. In 1984, he was a visiting professor at

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

. In 1986, Benz became a full professor of

biotechnology Biotechnology is a multidisciplinary field that involves the integration of natural sciences and Engineering Science, engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms and parts thereof for products and services. Specialists ...

at the University of Würzburg, his ''alma mater''. Since 2003, Benz has been a Member of the European Graduate College; and, since 2005, a Member in the French–German Graduate College, both sponsored by the DFG. Since 2009, Benz has held the Wisdom Professorship at the

Jacobs University Bremen Constructor University, formerly Jacobs University Bremen, is an international, private, residential research university located in Vegesack, Bremen, Germany. It offers study programs in engineering, humanities, natural and social sciences, in ...

and has been a research fellow at the Rudolf Virchow Center and the DFG Research Center for Experimental Biomedicine. He remains a professor at the University of Würzburg.

Research interests

Benz's research interests include the periplasmic structure and organization of

cell membrane The cell membrane (also known as the plasma membrane or cytoplasmic membrane, and historically referred to as the plasmalemma) is a biological membrane that separates and protects the interior of a cell from the outside environment (the extr ...

s and other

biological membrane A biological membrane, biomembrane or cell membrane is a selectively permeable membrane that separates the interior of a cell from the external environment or creates intracellular compartments by serving as a boundary between one part of th ...

s; biophysical processes and the molecular basis of membrane

protein Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residue (biochemistry), residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including Enzyme catalysis, catalysing metab ...

s in

microorganism A microorganism, or microbe, is an organism of microscopic scale, microscopic size, which may exist in its unicellular organism, single-celled form or as a Colony (biology)#Microbial colonies, colony of cells. The possible existence of unseen ...

s and higher organisms; and, pore-forming

peptide Peptides are short chains of amino acids linked by peptide bonds. A polypeptide is a longer, continuous, unbranched peptide chain. Polypeptides that have a molecular mass of 10,000 Da or more are called proteins. Chains of fewer than twenty am ...

s and proteins. Benz is the leader of several research projects, including: *the molecular basis of signal transduction and membrane transport (SFB 176; 1987–1999); *ecology, physiology, and biochemistry of plants under stress (SFB 251; 1989–1992); *nuclear magnetic resonance ''in vivo'' and in vitro for the study of biomedical basic elements (Member in the DFG-Graduate College; 1992–1999); and, *the regulatory membrane proteins: from the mechanism of recognition to the pharmacological structure (SFB 487; seit 2000).

Awards

In 2002, Benz was recognised with the ''Gay-Lussac/Humboldt Award de la Ministère de recherche français'' for his role in the development of a Franco–German collaboration. In 2007, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the

University of Barcelona The University of Barcelona (official name in ; UB), formerly also known as Central University of Barcelona (), is a public research university located in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It was established in 1450. With 76,000 students, ...

. In 2011, he was honoured, with another honorary doctorate, by the

Umeå University Umeå University (; Ume Sami language, Ume Sami: ) is a public university, public research university located in Umeå, in the mid-northern region of Sweden. The university was founded in 1965 and is the fifth oldest within Sweden's present bord ...

's Faculty of Medicine"Roland Benz honorary doctor at Umeå University"
Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (MIMS), Juni 2011

Publications

* Benz R. (1980.) ''Künstliche Lipidmembranen. Modelle für biologische Membranen'', Universitätsverlag Konstanz, * Benz R. (2004.) ''Bacterial and Eukaryotic Porins. Structure, Function, Mechanism'', Wiley-VCH,

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Benz, Roland 1943 births Living people German biophysicists People from Singen University of Würzburg alumni Academic staff of the University of Würzburg University of Konstanz alumni