Wolfgang Knoll is a globally operating, internationally recognized scientist from the border area between biophysics, the material sciences and bionanotechnology. Knoll habilitated in biophysics in Munich in 1986. In the same year, he was appointed head of a junior research group at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPI-P) in Mainz, and became director at the MPI-P in 1993. At the same time, he acted as “Head of Laboratory for Exotic Nanomaterials” at the world-renowned RIKEN Institute in Tokyo from 1991.
Knoll’s publications have made a decisive contribution to establishing the biophysics of membranes as an important research topic at the interface between physics, chemistry, biology, and the materials and engineering sciences; his work has also been groundbreaking for innovations in biosensor research.
Since 2008, Wolfgang Knoll has been scientific and technical director of the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), the largest non-university research institution in Austria.