Max Planck Institute for Biophysics

The Max Planck Institute for Biophysics ( MPIBP ) is a research institute of the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, based in Frankfurt am Main.

Main area of ​​research is the study of the operation of membrane and transport proteins by suitable physical methods such as high resolution electron microscopy or X-ray analysis of protein crystals (see also Biophysics).

Since March 2003, the MPI of Biophysics is housed in a building on campus Riedenberg the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in the north of the city. The end of 2006 a total of 169 employees at the institute, including 35 scientists and 55 junior scientists. The Nobel laureate Hartmut Michel is since 1987 Director of the Institute.

History

Forerunner of today's Institutes was the existing since 1937 Kaiser- Wilhelm- Institute of Biophysics, which itself was founded in the 1921 by Frankfurt guarantors within the framework of Oswalt Foundation and Friedrich Dessauer led " Institute of Physical foundations of medicine " emerged. Admission to the Kaiser Wilhelm Society took place after the emigration Dessauer. New Head of the Institute became his longtime collaborator Boris Rajewsky, who is considered the founder of biophysics. It has been researched primarily due to the effect of nuclear radiation on humans and a potential medical use, as well as aerosols.

After the Second World War the Institute was opened in 1948 as the " Max Planck Institute of Biophysics " again. End of the 60s the research oriented away from work with radioactive radiation to the investigation of the " mass transport through biological and artificial membranes ." The focus of research were now ( and they still are today ) to study the cell membrane and its components, membrane proteins ( and especially the transport proteins). The cell membranes and the proteins were examined with and at the time advanced physical methods, including, inter alia:

  • X-ray crystallography
  • High resolution electron microscopy
  • Spectroscopy

In March 2003, the Institute moved in the course of the move from the scientific faculties of the University of Frankfurt on the "green meadow " from its old premises in the center of Frankfurt. The new building in the Max -von- Laue -Str. 3 on the university campus Riedenberg represents a major advance for the scientists there (see below architecture).

Organization and Structure

The MPIBP consists of four departments with various sub-groups and two independent research groups:

  • Departments:
  • Molecular Membrane Biology (Director: Hartmut Michel since 1987):
  • Structural Biology (Director: Werner Kühlbrandt since 1997):
  • Biophysical Chemistry (Director: Ernst Bamberg since 1993):
  • Molecular Neurogenetics (Director: Peter Mombaerts ):
  • Independent Research Groups
  • Molecular Biophysics (Head: E. Grell )
  • Cell Physiology ( Director: W. Black)

Is all of the groups have in common that they use modern genetic engineering techniques to produce different variants of genes to be examined in order to determine the function of individual amino acids.

International Max Planck Research Schools ( IMPRS )

The MPI operates since 2000 the International Max Planck Reseach School for Structure and Function of Biological Membranes. An International Max Planck Research School is an English doctoral program. This IMPRS was one of the first that have been established. Other contributors to the IMPRS are the Johann Wolfgang Goethe- University of Frankfurt and the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research. The MPI of Biophysics is still involved in the existing since 2011 International Max Planck Research School for Neural Circuits that will hold ten PhD students each year. This IMPRS is anchored at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, and is organized in cooperation with several other neuroscience institutes in Frankfurt, so with the Johann Wolfgang Goethe- University of Frankfurt, the Ernst Strüngmann Institute and the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies.

Architecture

The functional construction of the MPIBP on the university campus Riedenberg is divided by an east-west direction by consistently extending entrance hall into two halves. In the northern half are the laboratories and other research facilities of the Institute, while in the southern half from the first floor of the offices and meeting rooms of the scientists and the administration are. For fast communication, the two halves are connected by bridges that span over the entrance hall.

Others

  • One of the working groups directors since the founding of the MPIBP same time professor at the University of Frankfurt ( At the moment, E. Bamberg for Biophysical Chemistry )
  • The MPIBP keeps frogs to gain from their spawning cell specimens.
  • In cooperation with other MPIs ( for Biochemistry, Medical Research and Molecular Physiology ), it operates its own beamline ( Beamline ) at the Swiss Light Source ( SLS) in Switzerland, " one of the most modern and most powerful synchrotron radiation sources of the " third generation " in Europe" (source) in order to bypass the usually long waiting times to a measurement. With the sharply focused and intense synchrotron radiation ( X-rays ) are to large protein complexes can be better examined X-ray structure analysis.
Basic research Natural science Protein crystallization Neurotransmitter Integrated Authority File
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