Prof. Dr. med. Dr. med. hc Karl Zilles († 26.04.2020) graduated from the University of Frankfurt and received his doctorate in anatomy from the Medical Faculty in Hannover in 1971. He became a full professor of anatomy and neuroanatomy at the University of Cologne in 1981 and at the University of Düsseldorf in 1991. From 1991 to 2012, he was director of the C. and O. Vogt Institute of Brain Research and director of the Institute for Neuroscience and Medicine at Research Center Jülich from 1998 to 2012. Until his death, he was a JARA senior professor at the RWTH Aachen University and Research Center Jülich.

Prof. Dr. Adolf Hopf studied medicine and passed the state and doctoral examinations in 1948. In 1956 he was awarded the specialist qualification for nervous and mental diseases and in 1958 the venia legendi for psychiatry and neurology. In 1960 he became the director of the Institute for Brain Research and General Biology in Neustadt (Black Forest). The institute was moved from Neustadt to Düsseldorf under his direction in 1965. Prof. Hopf was appointed to the chair of brain research at the newly founded University of Düsseldorf and became the director of the C. and O. Vogt Institute of Brain Research. In 1976 he was appointed additionally as a director of Institute of Anatomy. Professor Hopf became emeritus in 1988. He died on April 15, 2011 at the age of 88.