In Memoriam: Prof. Dr. Klaus Ammann

PRRI Steering Committee member Em. Prof. Dr. Klaus Amman passed away on 12 April 2023.

Those who worked with Prof. Ammann during his time as director of the Botanical Garden of Bern admired him for his encyclopaedic knowledge of botany and for his vision to recognise the value of molecular biology to unravel plant evolution.

Prof. Ammann was a PRRI member of the first hour, and his fellow PRRI members came to know him as a solid source of scientific knowledge and as an independent thinker who would not shy away from open debate.

MOP7, 2014, Pyeong Chang, S. Korea

Over the years, Prof. Amman participated multiple times with the PRRI delegation to the Meetings of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (‘MOPs’). During those negotiations, he stood out as a fierce defender of science and as an indefatigable promotor of biotechnology as an essential tool for the objectives of the Convention of Biological Diversity.

The members of PRRI will remember and miss Klaus for his knowledge, for his unwavering promotion of science and biotechnology, for his sharp and bold debating, for his lucid writing, for his smiling optimism, and for being an exuberant and gentle human being with a wonderful sense of humour.