Holger Zinke

Holger Zinke (born January 4, 1963 in Bensheim ) is a German biochemist and entrepreneur. He is the founder of BRAIN Biotechnology Research and Information Network AG in Zwingenberg, Hesse, and was awarded the German Environment Prize in 2008 .

life and work

From 1983 to 1988, Zinke studied biology with a focus on microbiology at the Technical University of Darmstadt . He was a scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation . He then obtained his doctorate in 1992 with a thesis on the topic of "Identification and characterization of blood-brain barrier- associated transcripts ". rer. nat. with a grant from the German Chemical Industry Association .

In 1993 he founded Brain AG, of which he became managing director and of which he was chairman of the board from 2000 to 2015. Since then he has been deputy chairman of the supervisory board.

Zinke campaigned for the establishment of several industry associations, including the Association of German Biotechnology Companies (VBU), of which he was a founding member in 1996, and BIO Deutschland e. V., as lobby organizations in the industry. He sits on the advisory boards of ministries and industry associations and has been on the University Council of the Mannheim University of Applied Sciences since 2006 and on the University Council of the TU Darmstadt since 2010 .

Prizes and awards

The Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt awarded him the German Environment Prize 2008 and recognized that “the approach that Zinke and his team are pursuing is innovative because now, for the first time, nature's complete toolbox is available for industrial purposes.” An example is given that a washing enzyme developed by Brain AG for Henkel achieves the same washing power at temperatures of 40 ° C that was previously only achieved at 60 ° C. This could save 1.3 million tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in Germany every year . In 2010 he received the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon and in 2011 the “IBN Award” from the Association of Industrial Biotechnology Nord e. V. and the Treviranus Medal of the Association of Biology, Biosciences and Biomedicine in Germany .

Since 2009 Holger Zinke has also been a member of the German Federal Government's Bioeconomy Council (BÖR) , which discusses the further development of the bioeconomy in Germany .

literature

• Holger Zinke, Stefanie Heiden (ed.): White biotechnology . Berlin: Biocom, 2006, ISBN 978-3-928383-21-9

Web links

• Literature by and about Holger Zinke in the catalog of the German National Library
• Portrait of Zinkes at the German Federal Environmental Foundation (as of 2008)
• Brain AG - home page

Individual evidence

1. ↑ "German biotech company pacemaker for sustainability" ( Memento of the original from November 13, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - German Environment Prize 2008 of the DBU: Individual award Dr. Holger Zinke, BRAIN AG  
2. ↑ Magistrate of the City of Zwingenberg: Press release from March 19, 2010 ( Memento of the original from August 21, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ Dr. Holger Zinke, founder and CEO of BRAIN AG, received the IBN Award. Industrielle Biotechnologie Nord eV, June 15, 2011.
4. ^ Council members of the Bioeconomy Council.