Matthias Boll studied Biology at the University of Freiburg and started his Ph.D. thesis in the group of Prof. Dr. Georg Fuchs at the University of Ulm and finished his thesis on dearomatizing benzoyl-CoA reductases at the University of Freiburg. He stayed as postdoctoral researcher in the group of Dr. David Lowe, John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK, where he performed spectroscopic studies on different metalloenzymes. Back at the University of Freiburg, he started his own research group and received his habilitation in the field of Microbiology. In 2006 he received a full professorship at the University of Leipzig in the Institute of Biochemistry where he studied basic and applied environmental aspects of anaerobic degradation of aromatic compounds. Since 2012 he has a full professorship at the University of Freiburg, where he was responsible for the newly established B.Sc. and M.Sc. studies. From 2008 to 2014 M. Boll was the principle coordinator of the Scientific Priority Program of the Germany Research Foundation (DFG) SPP1319: “Biological transformation of hydrocarbons without oxygen: from the molecular to the global scale.” He is in an internationally leading position in the field of biochemistry and metabolism of anaerobic degradation of aromatic compounds and steroids. M. Boll has authored around 100 articles in journals such as Nature Chemical Biology, Nature Communications, PNAS, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Angewandte Chemie, and ISME Journal.
