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Prof. Dietrich Mebs

President of the Toxinomics Foundation

Frankfurt
Germany

E-mail: dietrich.mebs@toxinomics.org

Dietrich Mebs was born in Frankfurt, Germany on February 20, 1942. He studied biology and biochemistry at the University of Frankfurt, spent a half year for studies on the biochemistry of snake venoms at the Instituto Butantan in Sao Paulo, Brazil and obtained his PhD in 1968 from the University of Frankfurt.

After graduating, Dietrich Mebs joined the Center of Forensic Medicine, where he has spent his entire career until his recent retirement. In 1970/71 he stayed for a half year as a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Protein Research, University of Osaka, Japan, where he elucidated the primary structure of alpha-bungarotoxin, a snake venom toxin which became an important tool in neurochemistry.

After his Habilitation in Forensic Sciences in 1979, he was promoted to Professor in 1985. Beside his forensic work in toxicology and DNA-typing his main research interest is devoted to venoms and poisons of plant and animal oritheir chemistry and mode of action.

He published more than 250 scientific articles and four books among them "Venomous and Poisonous Animals" which first appeared in German ("Gifttiere") 1992. Dietrich Mebs teaches forensic medicine, toxicology and toxinology at the university as well as overseas (Philippines, Australia, South-Africa). Since 1982, he is Secretary-Treasurer of the International Society on Toxinology, the only scientific society devoted to studies on animal, plant and microbial toxins.

Prof. Mebs, vice-president of the Foundation from 2006 to 2008, was elected President of the Foundation in 2008.