Wilfried Weber trained as an engineer in biotechnology at the École Supérieure de Biotechnologie de Strasbourg, Wilfried Weber earned his PhD in Biotechnology in 2003 from ETH Zurich together with Martin Fussenegger. In 2009, he was appointed as the first Full Professor of Synthetic Biology in Germany at the University of Freiburg. In 2018, he was the acting spokesperson in developing the proposal for the new Centre for Integrative Biological Signaling Studies and served as founding director after the establishment of the Centre. 2023 he was appointed as Scientific Director of the INM – Leibniz Institute for New Materials and as full professor at Saarland University. His research combines synthetic biology, optogenetics, and materials sciences to develop biohybrid and living materials for applications in tissue engineering, drug delivery, biosensing, and sustainable construction. He was awarded a Starting and an Advanced Grant of the European Research Council, is coordinating an EIC-funded project on engineered living materials, and is a member of the German National Academy of Science and Engineering.