Her­bert Wald­mann is a key fig­ure in the field of chem­ical bio­logy. After com­plet­ing his stud­ies and doctorate in chem­istry at the Uni­ver­sity of Mainz, he did research first at Har­vard Uni­ver­sity and then again at the Uni­ver­sity of Mainz. He was Pro­fessor of Chem­istry at the Uni­ver­sit­ies of Bonn and Karls­ruhe and has been Dir­ector of the Depart­ment of Chem­ical Bio­logy at the Max Planck Insti­tute for Molecu­lar Physiology in Dortmund and Pro­fessor of Bio­chem­istry at the Uni­ver­sity of Dortmund since 1999. Her­bert Wald­mann is a driv­ing force in applied chem­ical bio­logy and acts as head of the Chem­ical Gen­om­ics Cen­ter (since 2005) and the Com­pound Man­age­ment and Screen­ing Cen­ter (since 2010) of the Max Planck Soci­ety. Her­bert Wald­mann ana­lyses the struc­ture and func­tion of pro­teins in the search for act­ive ingredi­ents and the ana­lysis of the rela­tion­ships between bio­lo­gical action and chem­ical struc­ture. He has been awar­ded numer­ous sci­entific prizes and an hon­or­ary doctorate from the Uni­ver­sity of Leiden, is a mem­ber of sev­eral sci­ence academies includ­ing the Leo­pold­ina, and was awar­ded an Advanced Grant by the European Research Council.