Born in 1945 in Burgellern, Germany, Wolfgang Schumann studied biology at the Johannes-Gutenberg-University of Mainz, gaining his diploma in 1970 and his PhD two years later. Following a postdoc at the Institute of Microbiology of the University of Goettingen, he became Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Biology of the University of Konstanz in 1975. From 1983 to 1986 he led a research group at the Institute of Biochemistry of the Technical Highschool of Darmstadt, before moving to the University of Bayreuth, where he was appointed Full Professor at the Faculty of Biology. Professor Schumann is on the editorial board of two journals and visiting professor at the universities of São Paulo and Belo Horizonte, Brazil, as well as the National University of Ho-Chi-Minh City, Vietnam.