His investigations have had a significant impact on our view of the role of mechanical forces in biology. His lab was the first to measure the interaction forces between individual ligand-receptor systems and to provide a detailed view of their binding potentials and unbinding forces.

Honors and Awards
1986 Annual Award of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Biophysik
1987 Winner of the Wettbewerb Biowissenschaften Stiftung Volkswagenwerk
1991 Heisenberg Fellow of the German Science Foundation
1993 Max-Planck Research Award
1998- Adjunct Professor at the Jilin University, China
2000 Leibniz-Kolleg Potsdamm
2000 Langmuir Lecture Award of the American Chemical Society
2000 Munich Business Plan Contest Award (3rd rank)
2001- Member of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften
2004 Researcher of the Year, Small Times Award
2004- Member of the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina
2006- Kuratorium Deutsches Museum München
2009 Attocube-Wittgenstein Award
2011 ERC Advanced Research Grant