Professor Dr Peter Schuster

Peter Schuster is well known for contributions to the theory of intermolecular forces, molecular evolution and RNA bioinformatics. The majority of his works were performed at the Institute for Theoretical Chemistry at Vienna University which he led for 36 years. During this time the Institute developed into a world-wide first rank institution in quantum chemistry and RNA bioinformatics. His early works were dealing with hydrogen bonds and proton transfer in systems of biological interest.
He became renowned for the investigations on the dynamics of evolutionary processes which he did together with Manfred Eigen and which resulted in the concepts of “quasispecies” and “hypercycles”. Quasispecies theory is used today to characterize virus populations and to develop antiviral drugs. Later on he started a systematic search for structures formed by random RNA sequences and discovered “neutral networks” which were found to be essential for optimization on rugged biopolymer landscapes.