Peter Schuster (chemist)

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Peter Schuster 2011

Peter Schuster (born March 7, 1941 in Vienna ) is an emeritus professor for theoretical chemistry at the University of Vienna and was president of the Austrian Academy of Sciences from 2006 to 2009 .

Scientific career

After passing the school leaving examination with distinction in 1959, Peter Schuster studied chemistry and physics at the University of Vienna and received his doctorate in 1967 sub auspiciis praesidentis as Dr. phil. From 1968 to 1969 he was a post-doctoral assistant at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen with Nobel laureate Manfred Eigen , with whom he developed the quasi-species model.

In 1971 he completed his habilitation in theoretical chemistry at the University of Vienna and in 1973 was appointed full professor at the University of Vienna for the same subject . Since that year he has been the director of the Institute for Theoretical Chemistry (with a brief interruption) and in 2004 was the first dean of the newly created Faculty of Chemistry.

Peter Schuster has been a corresponding member since 1984 and a full member since 1992 of the mathematics and natural sciences class of the Austrian Academy of Sciences . He is chairman of the board of trustees of the Academy Institute for Biophysics and X-ray Structure Research. From 2000 to 2003 he was Vice President of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and in 2006 he was elected President.

His research areas include the theory of hydrogen bonds and intermolecular forces, kinetics of proton transfer reactions in aqueous solutions, non-linear dynamics of complex systems, theory and modeling of molecular evolution, structures and properties of RNA molecules, optimization of RNA structures, "neutral networks “For biopolymers, analytical approximations of non-linear differential equations from physics, chemistry and neurobiology, as well as genetic regulation and metabolic networks.

From 1992 to 1995 he was on leave of absence from the University of Vienna to take on the function of founding director of the Institute for Molecular Biotechnology (today Leibniz Institute for Aging Research - Fritz Lipmann Institute) in Jena . Peter Schuster is an external faculty member of the Biological-Pharmaceutical Faculty of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena and an external faculty member of the Santa Fe Institute in the USA. He held several visiting professorships.

He is a member of several other scientific societies, for example the National Academy of Sciences since 2009 , and has received numerous awards, including the Austrian Decoration of Honor for Science and Art since 1992 .

Peter Schuster is the author of nine books and around 300 publications in scientific journals (original papers, reviews and essays). He is (co-) editor in several scientific journals.

In autumn 2012 Schuster was elected by the Senate of the Vienna University of Technology as a member of the University Council of the Vienna University of Technology for the period from 2013 to 2018.

Awards and memberships (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Schuster President of the Austrian Academy of Sciences from 2006 to 2009 ( Memento from February 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Member entry by Peter Schuster (with picture and CV) at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on February 1, 2016.
  3. ↑ EMBO enlarges its membership for 50th anniversary. Press release from May 8, 2014 at the Science Information Service (idw-online.de)
personal data
SURNAME Schuster, Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian chemist
DATE OF BIRTH March 7, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna