Hanns Ulrich Zeilhofer was born in 1963 in Erlangen (Germany). He studied Medicine and Physics at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, before he received postdoctoral training in electrophysiology at the Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen (Prof. Erwin Neher and Dieter Swandulla) and in Molecular Biology at the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Zurich (Prof. Hanns Möhler). He made his MD thesis at the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg (Prof. Kay Brune). From 2001 to 2005 he was associate professor of Molecular Neuropharmacology at the Institute of Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Erlangen-Nürnberg. In September 2005 he joined the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Zurich, as full professor of Pharmacology.