Thomas Hofmann (food chemist)

Thomas Frank Hofmann (* 1968 in Coburg ) is a German food chemist and President of the Technical University of Munich (TUM).

Live and act

He passed the Abitur in 1987 at the Meranier-Gymnasium Lichtenfels and studied from 1988 to 1992 food chemistry at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg . In 1995 he was appointed to the chair for food chemistry under Prof. Peter Schieberle with the subject "Characterization of intense odorous substances in carbohydrate / cysteine ​​model reactions and clarification of educational pathways - a contribution to the Maillard reaction" from the Faculty of Chemistry, Biology and Geosciences of the Technical University of Munich the doctor of Science PhD and habilitation in 1998 at the same faculty. Until 2002 he taught as a private lecturer for food chemistry at the Technical University of Munich and was also deputy director of the German Research Institute for Food Chemistry , which was located in Garching until 2010 . From 2002 to 2006 he was Professor (C4) and Managing Director of the Institute for Food Chemistry at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster .

From 2007 he held the chair for food chemistry and molecular sensor technology at the Weihenstephan Science Center at the Technical University of Munich. When he took office as President of TUM, he was given leave of absence. At the Weihenstephan Science Center, he also headed the Bioanalytics department of the Central Institute for Nutrition and Food Research (ZIEL) until 2014 . Since the beginning of 2015 he has been Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (JAFC), the largest scientific journal for food chemistry published in the USA. From 2015 to 2019 he was (together with Bernhard Küster ) co-director of the Bavarian Center for Biomolecular Mass Spectrometry (BayBioMS) at TUM. From 2017 to 2019 he was also director of the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich in Freising , the former German Research Institute for Food Chemistry | German Research Institute for Food Chemistry.

From 2009 to 2019, Thomas Hofmann was TUM Executive Vice President for Research and Innovation. In October 2018 he was elected by the University Council as the successor to Wolfgang A. Herrmann for the 2019-2025 election period as President of TUM with effect from October 1, 2019 . He has been in office since October 1, 2019.

Research priorities

Center for food chemistry on the Freising-Weihenstephan campus

At his chair, which he has held since 2007, Hofmann was in charge of research by international science teams in the following areas until his leave of absence:

• “Sensomics” - structural decoding and functional reconstruction of the chemosensory signatures of foods;
• “Bioactives” - activity-oriented characterization of bioactive natural substances in food and complex biological systems;
• "Nutritional Metabolomics" - human metabolism of biofunctional food ingredients and molecular definition of nutritive biomarker profiles:
• "Phytometabolomics" - Molecular and functional mapping of the metabolic response of food plants to abiotic and biotic stress conditions;
• "Water Systems Engineering" - Development of new methods for water treatment and for the system and process-oriented management of energy and material flows in the food and beverage industry.

Publications

List on the chair's website accessed on August 10, 2020

Board memberships

• since 2017 director of the “Supervisory Board of the Knowledge and Innovation Community” (KIC) EIT FOOD;
• since 2015 member of the board of trustees of the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry and the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology , both in Martinsried near Munich;
• since 2013 Chairman of the Education & Science Committee of the Bavarian Economic Advisory Board;
• since 2011 member of the Governing Board of TUM CREATE Ltd., Singapore.
• since 2011 member of the board of trustees of the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry , Munich;
• since 2010 member of the Military Medical Advisory Board of the Federal Ministry of Defense (BMVg), Berlin.

Prizes and awards

• 2016 Otto von Guericke Prize, Working Group of Industrial Research Associations "Otto von Guericke" eV (AiF), Germany.
• 2015 Eric Kneen Memorial Award, American Society of Brewing Chemists (ASBC), USA.
• 2014 Advancement in the Application of Agricultural and Food Chemistry Award, American Chemical Society (ACS), San Francisco, USA.
• 2013 JAFC Research Article of the Year Award 2013, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry , American Chemical Society (ACS), USA.
• 2008 Fellow Award of the Agricultural & Food Chemistry Division, American Chemical Society (ACS), USA.

Works

• With D. Krautwurst and Peter Schieberle : Current Topics in Flavor Chemistry and Biology . Edited by the German Research Institute for Food Chemistry (DFA). ISBN 978-3-938896-79-2 . Germany, 2013
• With Wolfgang Meyerhof and Peter Schieberle: Advances and Challenges in Flavor Chemistry and Biology . Edited by the German Research Institute for Food Chemistry (DFA). ISBN 978-3-938896-38-9 . Germany, 2010

Web links

Commons : Campus Freising-Weihenstephan  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Website of the Weihenstephan Science Center at TUM - accessed on January 7, 2018
• Website of the Chair of Food Chemistry and Molecular Sensor Technology accessed on January 7, 2018
• Website of the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich accessed on January 7, 2018
• Website of the TUM branch in Singapore, TUM CREATE accessed on January 7, 2018

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Thomas F. Hofmann: CV Prof. Dr. Thomas F. Hofmann. In: portal.mytum.de. Retrieved October 12, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Website of the chair holder , accessed on August 10, 2020
3. ^ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry welcomes new editor Thomas F. Hofmann, American Chemical Society press release, November 3, 2014 , accessed April 19, 2018
4. ↑ Thomas Hofmann becomes the new President of TUM. Retrieved September 30, 2019 . 
5. ↑ CV of Prof. Dr. Thomas F. Hofmann. Retrieved August 10, 2020 . 
6. ↑ Internet presence of the Chair of Food Chemistry and Molecular Sensor Technology , accessed on January 7, 2018.