studied pharmacy and received his PhD at University of Munich; 1993-2002 he was Associate Professor at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Biology, University of Düsseldorf; since 2002 he is full professor of pharmacognosy at University of Graz, where he headed the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences from 2004-2021. Together with Prof. Litscher (Medical University Graz) he is head of the TCM Research Center Graz. He is expert in natural product chemistry, analysis and bioassay-guided isolation of constituents from medicinal plants and has published 400 research papers. Since 30 years, he is engaged in the development of quality control methods for Chinese herbs. He is chairman of the working group on TCM of the European Pharmacopoeia Commission, and has been president of the Society for Medicinal Plant and Natural Product Research (GA), founding president of the Good Practice in TCM Research Association, and president of the International Society of Ethnopharmacology. He has received many awards, like the honorary doctorates of the universities of Helsinki and Szeged, and recently the Government Friendship Award of PR China.