In 2014, Professor Walter Rosenthal, MD, became the first president of Friedrich Schiller University Jena after a distinguished career as a molecular pharmacologist and academic leader. He is recognised as a specialist in signal transduction (G-Proteins, G-protein-coupled receptors and anchoring proteins).
Born in Siegen, Germany (1954), Walter Rosenthal read Medicine at Justus Liebig University Giessen and spent his practical year at the Royal Free Hospital, School of Medicine, in London. After obtaining his doctorate in Giessen (1983), he started his postdoctoral research at Freie Universität Berlin, where he completed a Habilitation in the field of pharmacology (1990). He then spent two years doing research as a Heisenberg scholar and visiting professor at Baylor College, Houston, Texas (USA). From 1993 to 1996, he was Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology and Managing Director of the Rudolph Buchheim Institute of Pharmacology at Giessen University. In 1996, he became founding Director of what is now the Leibniz Institute for Molecular Pharmacology (FMP). Subsequently, he moved to the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) in Berlin-Buch, a national research centre of the Helmholtz Association, becoming Scientific Director and Chair of the Board of Directors (2009). He was appointed full Professor at Freie Universität Berlin in 1998 and Professor at Charité Berlin in 2003.
In 2014, Professor Rosenthal was elected the first President of Friedrich Schiller University Jena. As President of the University of Jena, he is Chair of the Executive Board and represents the University itself. Since 2021, he has also been elected Vice-President for research, academic career paths and transfer of the German Rectors’ Conference.
From 2018 to 2022, he has chaired the Thuringian State Presidents' Conference, an association of state universities of Thuringia.
Among his distinctions, he was awarded membership of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (2011) and of the Akademie gemeinnütziger Wissenschaften zu Erfurt (2018). He is an elected Senate member of the Leibniz Association (2017) and serves as Dean of the Max Planck Schools (2017). He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Tbilisi State University, Georgia (2017).
Walter Rosenthal is married and has three children.
Here you can find a tabular version of the curriculum vitae.pdf, 425 kb · de
Here you can download a portrait photo of Prof. Dr. Rosenthaljpg, 147 kb · de (Please note copyright! (C) Anne Günther, University of Jena).
