Scientist Rolf Müller receives Mannich Medal for groundbreaking research!

Scientist Rolf Müller receives Mannich Medal for groundbreaking research!

Professor Rolf Müller, Scientific Director of the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS), was awarded the Mannich Medal of the German Pharmaceutical Society (DPhG) on October 1, 2025. This medal represents the highest scientific honor of the DPhG and is awarded annually for outstanding achievements in the pharmaceutical sciences. The award ceremony took place as part of the DPhG annual meeting in Freiburg, where Müller was honored for his significant contributions to drug research.

Professor Müller's research focuses on the discovery and development of novel active ingredients to combat antimicrobial resistance. This is an increasingly critical issue in healthcare as well Charité emphasized. Müller and his team work particularly with natural products from soil bacteria, especially myxobacteria, to develop new therapeutic molecules. They use a program that is unique in the world and includes over 10,000 different myxobacterial strains from environmental samples.

Innovative approaches in drug discovery

The natural substances identified in Müller's research are characterized and optimized in both national and international collaborations in order to be able to use them as active ingredients against infectious diseases in humans. In this context, Müller combines methods from biotechnology, synthetic biology, analytical chemistry, bioinformatics and pharmaceutical sciences to optimize active ingredients. This multidisciplinary approach is crucial to unite digital and physical technologies in drug discovery.

Support for Müller's work comes from well-known international research funders. These include, among others, the Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Federal Ministry of Research and the European Union. This funding enables him to further pursue his translational approaches with the aim of converting research results not only into scientific publications, but also into usable medicines.

A life for pharmaceutical research

After completing his doctorate in pharmaceutical biology in Bonn in 1994 and obtaining his license to practice medicine, Müller gained valuable research experience at the University of Washington in Seattle. From there he returned to Germany, where he completed his habilitation at the Technical University of Braunschweig in 2000. In 2003 he became professor of pharmaceutical biochemistry at Saarland University and received the BioFuture Prize from the BMBF.

Since 2008, Müller has played a central role in the founding and development of the HIPS, which is the only non-university research institute in Germany dedicated to pharmaceutical research. Under his leadership, the institute became an important institution in drug research. In addition, he was awarded the DFG's prestigious Leibniz Prize in 2021, recognition for his outstanding scientific achievements.