Maikel Rheinstadter

Prof. Maikel Rheinstädter is a Full Professor of Biophysics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and a University Scholar at McMaster University. He received his PhD from Saarland University, Germany, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Research Centre Jülich, Germany. He then became a staff scientist at the Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, France. After a research leave at the University of Göttingen, Germany, he became an Assistant Professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia, USA. He joined McMaster University, Canada, in 2009. His research focuses on the field of membrane biophysics and the role of membranes in infectious and neurodegenerative diseases. He is also the Director of the Origins of Life Laboratory at McMaster, where his group investigates the formation of RNA and protocells under prebiotic, early Earth, and early planetary conditions. Dr. Rheinstädter has published over 150 research papers. Dr. Rheinstädter’s research is funded by NSERC, CIHR, NRC, CFI, the Province of Ontario, and McMaster University. He has been awarded more than $2.7 million in direct funding as a Principal Investigator (PI), in addition to over $8 million as a co-PI on CFI, Create, and MRSI grants. He is a co-founder and CEO of Synth-Med Biotechnology, a spin-off company that develops red blood cell-based drug carriers.