Christian Haass holds the chair of Biochemistry at the Medical Faculty of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, Germany. In addition, he is the speaker of the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE-Munich) and the Munich Cluster for Systems Neurology (SyNergy). He completed his undergraduate work at the University of Heidelberg and graduated at the Center for Molecular Biology (ZMBH) with highest honors. He trained with a postdoctoral fellowship of the DFG (German Research Foundation) at the Center for Neurologic Diseases in the Selkoe laboratory at the Harvard Medical School. Within two years he was appointed to Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard. In 1999 he returned to Germany, where he first was appointed as a Professor of Molecular Biology at the Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim and four years later as the chairman of the Department of Metabolic Biochemistry of the Ludwigs-Maximilians-University Munich. Dr. Haass’ research focuses on the cellular and molecular mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. He discovered the molecular mechanisms allowing physiological production of Amyloid -peptide and identified biological and pathological functions of secretases. His laboratory was also the first to reconstitute the gamma-secretase complex. More recently, Haass focusses on protective functions of microglia, which he attempts to therapeutically modify with selective antibodies. Haass received many prestigious awards, among them the Potemkin Award of the American Academy of Neurology, the MetLife Award, the Brain Prize, and the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz-Award of the DFG. He is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), the Leopoldina (German Academy of Sciences) and the Bavarian Academy of Sciences.