Wilfried Weber earned his Ph.D. and completed his postdoctoral training with Martin Fussenegger at ETH Zurich. He started his research group at ETH Zurich and was appointed as Full Professor of Synthetic Biology at the University of Freiburg, Germany in 2009. His lab focuses on the development and application of optogenetic technologies to interface mammalian cell signalling with multichromatic optical stimuli. More recently, his lab combined extracellular optogenetic tools with concepts from materials sciences to develop optically responsive extracellular matrices. These matrices can optically be tuned to alter their mechanical properties, to promote or avoid attachment of cells or to release biological cues such as cytokines. Further, the group established Optobase.org, a comprehensive online-resource for molecular optogenetics. His work has been recognized, among others, by ERC Starting and Proof-of-Concept grants.