Otmar Wiestler

Otmar Wiestler is a German physician and neuropathologist, born in 1956 in Freiburg im Breisgau, who is a professor at the University of Heidelberg and a former president of the Helmholtz Association. He studied medicine at Freiburg from 1975 to 1981, worked with Paul Kleihues, spent time at the Institute of Pathology at the University of California San Diego, and was a staff physician in neuropathology at the University Hospital in Zurich. From 1992 to 2003 he was full professor and chair of neuropathology at the university clinics in Bonn. His clinical research reached into cancer research, tumor genetics and stem cell research, and he has been publicly known since 2000 as a supporter of stem cell research in Germany. He chaired the German Cancer Research Centre foundation board from 2004 and became president of the Helmholtz Association in 2015, and in 2005 he received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.