[4] Eigen's research helped solve major problems in physical chemistry and aided in the understanding of chemical processes that occur in living organisms.

He worked to install a multidisciplinary program at the Max Planck Institute to study the underpinnings of life at the molecular level.

His work was hailed for creating a new scientific and technological discipline: evolutionary biotechnology.

He earned an undergraduate degree and began graduate study in natural sciences.

They were cited for their studies of extremely fast chemical reactions induced in response to very short pulses of energy.

In addition, Eigen's name is linked with the theory of quasispecies, the error threshold, error catastrophe, Eigen's paradox, and the chemical hypercycle, the cyclic linkage of reaction cycles as an explanation for the self-organization of prebiotic systems, which he described with Peter Schuster in 1977.

[5] Eigen won numerous awards for his research including: He received 15 honorary doctorates.