Paul Knochel was born 1955 in Strasbourg (France). He did his undergraduate studies at the University of Strasbourg (France) and his Ph.D at the ETH-Zürich with Prof. D. Seebach.

In 1991, he became Full Professor at this University and in 1992, he moved to Philipps-University at Marburg (Germany) as C4-Professor in Organic Chemistry.

In 1999, he moved to the Chemistry Department of Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich (Germany). His research interests include the development of novel organometallic reagents and methods for use in organic synthesis, asymmetric catalysis and natural product synthesis.

He published over 900 publications (including 35 books) and 40 patents. He was awarded with the 1992 Berthelot Medal of the Academie des Sciences (Paris), the 1994 IUPAC Thieme Prize, the 1995 European Chemical Society-Chiroscience Award for Creative European Chemistry, the 1995 Otto-Bayer-Prize, the 1996 Leibniz-Prize, the 2000 Victor Grignard-Prize, the 2004 Dr. Paul Janssen Prize for Creativity on Organic Synthesis, the 2005 Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, the 2007 Lilly European Distinguished Lectureship Award, the 2009 Karl-Ziegler-Prize, the 2012 Nagoya Gold Medal, the 2013 Chevalier de l’ordre national du Mérite, the 2014 Herbert C. Brown Award (ACS), the 2015 Paul Karrer Gold Medal.