Prof. Dr. Christoph Neinhuis trained as a gardener until 1983. He then studied biology at the University of Bonn from 1984 to 1990, obtaining his doctorate under Wilhelm Barthlott in 1993. As a research assistant to Barthlott, Neinhuis worked intensively on the mechanisms and fundamentals of the lotus effect and its transferability to technical applications. Numerous papers followed with Barthlott on the lotus effect and its applicability in practice, of which “Purity of the sacred lotus, or escape from contamination in biological surfaces” (1997) is considered groundbreaking. Their project “Model Nature: Uncontaminable New Materials” was nominated for Deutscher Zukunftspreis (German Future Prize) in 1998. The following year, Neinhuis and Barthlott were awarded the Philip Morris Research Prize for their work on transferring the lotus effect to technical applications. At the end of 1999, Neinhuis submitted his habilitation thesis in botany at the University of Bonn, and subsequently represented the professorship of botany at the University of Cologne until 2002. Since 2002, Neinhuis has been Professor of Botany at the Technical University of Dresden and Director of the Botanical Garden Dresden and the Botanical Collection Pirna-Zuschendorf. In 2014, Neinhuis was awarded the Innovation Prize of the Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden for the “development of robust, water- and oil-repellent polymer membranes modeled on the skin structures of springtails (Collembola).” Since 2014, he has been a full member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig as well as president of the Natural Science Society ISIS Dresden.