Ecker received his doctorate in natural sciences from the University of Vienna in 1991,[2] became appointed Associate Professor for Medicinal Chemistry in 1998 and Full Professor for Pharmacoinformatics in 2009.
[3] Ecker is Editor of Molecular Informatics[4] and coordinates the EUROPIN PhD programme in Pharmacoinformatics.
[citation needed] Currently he is also President of the European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry.
[5] Ecker's research focuses on computational drug design which not only led to the identification of highly active propafenone-type inhibitors of P-glycoprotein,[6][7][8] but also paved the way for development of new descriptors and virtual screening approaches for identification of new scaffolds active at P-gp.
[9] Around 2010 he extended the studies also on other antitargets, such as the hERG potassium channel,[10] as well as on the serotonin transporter,[11] the GABA receptor[12] and the insulin receptor.