[5][6] 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.

In 1963 and 1964, the “second generation” of ordinaries – Bresch (genetics), Drews (microbiology), Grisebach (biochemistry) and Sander (developmental biology of animals) – joined the founding fathers Mohr and Hassenstein.

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.

[11] The trinational, trilingual biotechnology program offered at the École supérieure de biotechnologie Strasbourg (ESBS) is also partially funded by, and held at, the University of Freiburg faculty of biology.

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.