Kurt Hostettmann studied chemistry, culminating in a doctoral thesis in science at the University of Neuchâtel. Passionate about plants, he continued his training at Columbia University in New York. Subsequently, he held a position at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, while teaching at the University of Neuchâtel and Fribourg, Switzerland. Since 1981, he has been Full Professor at the University of Lausanne and Director of the Institute of Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry. In 2004, its institute was transferred to the University of Geneva.

Kurt has devoted his career to the active principles of plants used in traditional medicine. For his contribution to a better understanding of the healing potential of plants, Kurt has received numerous scientific distinctions, the most important being the Egon Stahl Gold Medal of the Society for Medicinal Plant and Natural Product Research, attributed only every 3-4 years.

Kurt is the author of more than 650 scientific publications and 25 books, both academic and for the general public. He now hosts a bimonthly radio show on medicinal plants on the Swiss national radio RTS, advises a botanical drug company, and still teaches.

Kurt was born in 1944 in Meyriez, Switzerland. He lives in Champex-Lac, a scenic Swiss Wallis Alps village, where he is involved in the village’s Alpine Garden and in his own medicinal plant collection.