received his doctorate in 1992 in Erlangen and habilitated in 1999 at the Justus Liebig University of Giessen
Researches, among other things, equations of state of hot and dense nuclear matter (strange matter and neutron stars) as well as the formation of exotic particles
has held a professorship at the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the Goethe University Frankfurt since 2003
founded the Helmholtz International Center for FAIR between 2008 and 2011 in the function of the founding scientific director.