Biomolecules are scaffolding and storage substances that are indispensable for many metabolic processes in the organism. The Austrian physicist Rudolf Rigler was instrumental in analyzing the structure and dynamics of biomolecules in solution. This relates in particular to research into fluorescence, relaxation and correlation spectroscopy for the closer determination of dissociation constants between macromolecules and ligands. These findings are applied primarily in medical diagnostics. For this purpose, the biotechnology company Evotec was founded in Hamburg in 1993. Rigler was also co-founder of Gnothis and Biophos.
He studied medicine and physics at the universities of Graz and Frankfurt/Main, and is still a professor at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. Before that, he researched and taught in Lund and Lausanne. Rigler holds more than 40 patents and has received numerous awards. Among other things, he is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.