Karl-Heinz
Altmann

22 August 2019

Karl-Heinz Altmann has been a Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich since July 2003. Professor Altmann studied chemistry at the University of Mainz, Germany and he holds a PhD degree in organic chemistry from the University of Basel, Switzerland. From 1990 to 1996 he was a research scientist and group leader at Ciba-Geigy Central Research in Basel. In 1997 he moved to Oncology Research of Novartis Pharma, until in 2000 he was appointed the Novartis Senior Chemistry Expert. From January to July 2003 he was the acting Global Head of Chemistry of the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. Research in the Altmann group is centered on the chemical synthesis of pharmaceutically relevant natural products/ natural product analogs and their biological evaluation, with a particular focus on leads for anticancer and antituberculosis drug discovery. In 2014 Professor Altmann was awarded the Paul Ehrlich Prize of the Société de Chimie Thérapeutique, France.