The faculty of biology began to develop in 1960, when Friedrich Oehlkers forwarded the ordinary of botany to Hans Mohr and Bernhard Hassenstein took the chair of Zoology as successor of Otto Koehler. Back then, the department of biology was still part of the Naturwissenschaftlich-Mathematische Fakultät, which had been established in 1767. In 1963 and 1964, the “second generation” of ordinaries – Bresch, Drews, Grisebach and Sander – joined the founding fathers Mohr and Hassenstein. The “third generation” with the ordinaries Elster, Hertel, Osche, Sitte, Spatz and the female professor Otti Wilmanns followed between 1967 and 1969. Within hardly one decade, the department of biology had become a subject with twelve fields, making the establishment of an “own” faculty in compliance with a new constitution of the university in the year of 1970 a logical consequence.
Faculty today
In 2008, teaching courses have been reorganized according to the Bologna Agreement, replacing the original German diploma with the Bachelor-Master-System. Currently, the faculty offers a Bachelor's course in biology and two different Master courses: the Master of Science in biology and the Master of Science in Bioinformatics and Systems biology. The trinational, trilingualbiotechnology program offered at the École supérieure de biotechnologie Strasbourg is also partially funded by, and held at, the University of Freiburg faculty of biology. More than 1300 students are currently enrolled, among those about 300 in the old diploma program, 400 in the bachelor program and 350 in the German Lehramt-program.
The faculty's botanical garden was founded in 1620 by the university's Faculty of Medicine as hortus medicus. It was almost completely destroyed during the Thirty Years' War in 1632 and in 1677, when the city of Freiburg was taken by French troops, barracks were built on the former area of the botanical garden. The botanical garden was relocated to an area of 2.7 hectare close to the riverDreisam in 1766, where the first greenhouses were built in the years of 1827 and 1828. Due to the city's expansion, the garden had to be relocated again in 1879. Today's botanical garden was built in yet another, fourth location between 1912 and 1920. It features four exhibition greenhouses that, in total, span an area of 910 m². They are thematically divided into "tropic", "ferns", "succulents" and "cold house". A research greenhouse is considered a special feature of the faculty.
The genetically engineered golden rice was developed by the University of Freiburg professor Peter Beyer and the ETH Zurich professor Ingo Potrykus from 1992 to 2000. It was considered a breakthrough in biotechnology at the time of publication and now helps to provide Vitamin A to people lacking access to it in their diet. One existing crop, genetically engineered "golden rice" that produces vitamin A, already holds enormous promise for reducing blindness and dwarfism that result from a vitamin-A deficient diet.
The faculty provides service centres such as the International Moss Stock Center which collects, preserves and distributes several mosses for scientific research.
