Michael Pfaffl's Biography

Michael Pfaffl, Professor, Technical University of Munich

Michael W. Pfaffl started 1986 to study ‘Agriculture - Animal Science’ and ‘Biotechnology’ at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). In 1997 he obtained his PhD in ‘Molecular Physiology’ in the field of molecular muscle and growth physiology at the Chair of Physiology. In June 2003 he completed his Venia Legendi (Dr. habil.) at the Center of Life and Food Sciences Weihenstephan with the title ‘Livestock transcriptomics -- Quantitative mRNA analytics in molecular endocrinology and mammary gland physiology’.

Early 2010 he became Professor of ‘Molecular Physiology’ at the TUM School of Life Sciences in Freising Weihenstephan. Today he has reached the ‘Principal Investigator’ status at the Institute of Animal Physiology & Immunology and is one of the leading scientists in the field of molecular physiology, with focus on Gene Quantification, RT-qPCR technology, RNA sequencing, extracellular vesicle (EV) biology, and complex data analysis by integrative biostatistical methods and multivariate algorithms.

He is author of more than 200 peer reviewed publications, 50 book chapters, and held more than 250 lectures worldwide. He is coauthor of the high-cited Minimum Information for Publication of Quantitative Real-Time PCR Experiments (MIQE) guidelines (2009), of the dMIQE guidelines for digital PCR (2013), and Minimal Information for Studies of Extracellular Vesicles 2018 (MISEV2018). Michael W. Pfaffl received the Heinz Maier-Leibniz Medal 2019 in recognition of his outstanding, internationally recognized and well-cited research work on the relative quantification of RNA by real-time RT-qPCR. "A new mathematical model for relative quantification in real-time RT-PCR" published 2001 in Nucleic Acids Research 29(9) which has been cited today more than 30,000 times. TUM presents the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Medal to researcher who, through their exceptional achievements in science, technology and/or medicine, have rendered a great service to the university in their capacity as outstanding lecturers and scientists. Professor Michael W. Pfaffl has editorial involvements as Editor in ‘Methods’, ‘International Journal of Oncology’, ‘Extracellular Vesicles and Circulating Nucleic Acids’, ‘World Academy of Sciences Journal’, and Editor-in-Chief of the ‘Gene Quantification’ webportal (www.gene-quantification.info), the world biggest webpage around qPCR, dPCR and Gene Expression profiling techniques and applications. He is initiator and lead organizer of the qPCR, dPCR & NGS Gene Quantification Event series in Freising Weihenstephan in Germany since 2004 (www.eConferences.de).