In his ERC project 31PIRATE, André K. Eckhardt examines whether reactive phosphorus compounds that made the emergence of life possible could have come to Earth from space.
André K. Eckhardt
D. Grote
ERC Starting Grant 2026
Grantee Dr. André K. Eckhardt
Dr. André K. Eckhardt leads an Emmy Noether Group in the Faculty of Chemistry and Biochemistry and as part of the Excellence Cluster RESOLV at Ruhr University Bochum.
André K. Eckhardt studied chemistry at Justus Liebig University Giessen, where he also completed his doctorate in organic chemistry in 2019. He undertook research stays as a doctoral student at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and the University of Coimbra in Portugal. In 2020, he moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in the USA as a postdoctoral researcher, supported by a Feodor Lynen Fellowship. Eckhardt returned to Germany in 2022 on a Humboldt Return Fellowship and continued his work at Ruhr University Bochum. From mid-2022 to 2024, he led a junior research group as a Liebig Fellow in chemistry and as part of the Excellence Cluster RESOLV, and since mid-2024 as an Emmy Noether research group leader.
ERC Grantees