Metin Colpan, Ph.D., is a co-founder of QIAGEN and was the Chief Executive Officer and a Managing Director from 1985 to 2003. Dr. Colpan has been a member of the Supervisory Board since 2004 and, in June 2026, was appointed Honorary Chairman of the Supervisory Board in recognition of his longstanding contributions to QIAGEN. He was also a member of the Nomination & Governance Committee from 2015 to 2026 and continues to support QIAGEN as Vice Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board. Prior to co-founding QIAGEN, Dr. Colpan was an Assistant Investigator at the Institute for Biophysics at the University of Düsseldorf. He has extensive experience in sample technologies, particularly the separation and purification of nucleic acids, and holds numerous patents in the field. Dr. Colpan obtained his doctorate and master’s degree from the Darmstadt Institute of Technology.