American University of Beirut, Lebanon, “Master of Science” (1976). Doctor of Microbiology, University of Göttingen, Germany (1980). Professor of Technical Microbiology, Hamburg University of Technology (1989)

Director of Institute of Technical Microbiology, Hamburg University of Technology (since 2003). Coordinator of the Innovation Centre Biocatalysis (ICBio), DBU (since 2003). Director of the International Collection of Biocatalysts (BiocatCollection), (since 2005)

President of the International Society for Extremophiles (ISE) (since 2005). Union of the German Academies of Sciences, DAAD, ASM, VAAM

Dr. h.c. awarded by the Armenian Academy of Sciences (2001). German Environmental Price awarded by the German Environmental Foundation (2004)

Editor of the Springer journals EXTREMOPHILES and MARINE BIOTECHNOLOGY. Chairman of the Biocat-Conferences (2002, 2004, 2006). Co-chairman of the International Congresses on Extremophiles (1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006). Coordinator of the EU network project “Biotechnology of Extremophiles“ (1993-1996), EU network project “Extremophiles as Cell Factories“ (1997-1999), Joint research project "Verbund Biokatalyse", DBU (2000-2004), Cluster of the Ministry of Education and Research “Biocatalysis 2021” (2007-2012). Publications – 135, Contributions to Meetings and Conferences – over 150, Patents – 107