Roland Benz

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Roland Benz (born 1943 in Singen (Hohentwiel)) is a German biophysicist.

Benz studied Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics at the University of Würzburg. In 1972 he obtained his PhD in Biology by Peter Läuger at University of Konstanz and his Habilitation in Biophysics in 1977. As Heisenberg Fellowship of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) (German Science Foundation) he was Visiting Professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook (SUNYSB) in 1980 and 1982. In 1984 he was Visiting Professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Since 1986 he is full Professor of Biotechnology at the University of Würzburg. He was Leader of several research projects:

Molecular basis of signal transduction and membrane transport (SFB 176; 1987-1999)
Ecology, physiology andbiochemistry of plants under stress (SFB 251; 1989-1992)
Nuclear magnetic resonance in vivoand in vitro for the study of biomedical basic elements (Member in the DFG-Graduate College; 1992-1999)
Regulatory membrane proteins: from the mechanism of recognition to the pharmacological structure (SFB 487; seit 2000)

Since 2003 Benz is a Member in the European Graduate College "Gene regulation in and by microbial pathogens"and since 2005 a Member in the French-German Graduate College "Interference of pathogens with the host signalling machinery", both sponsored by the DFG.

Research priorities of Benz, in addition to construction, Peri plastic structure and organization of biological membranes and cell membranes he is interested in biophysical processes in the molecular basis of membrane proteins in microorganisms and higher organisms, with a special interest in pore-forming peptides and proteins. He has published numerous scientific papers.

He received in 2002 the Gay-Lussac/Humboldt Award de la Ministère de recherche français for the development of the German/French collaboration in Science. In 2007 he has been awarded Honorary Doctorate by the University of Barcelona.^[1]

[edit] Publications

Roland Benz: Künstliche Lipidmembranen. Modelle für biologische Membranen, Universitätsverlag Konstanz 1980, ISBN 3-87940-142-X
Roland Benz: Bacterial and Eukaryotic Porins. Structure, Function, Mechanism, Wiley-VCH 2004, ISBN 3-527-30775-3