Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology

The Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology (German: Max-Planck-Institut für molekulare Physiologie) is located in Dortmund, Germany next to the Dortmund University of Technology. It is one of 80 institutes in the Max Planck Society (Max Planck Gesellschaft).

The institute is divided into five departments:

• Emeritus Department I Structural Biology (Research Director: Dr. Alfred Wittinghofer)

Sometimes the tiniest of factors can determine health or disease – an important insight that Alfred Wittinghofer and his team have seen confirmed time and again during their work as researchers. And no wonder, for their main research interest is a group of proteins which are among the key regulating molecules in living organisms.

• Department II Systemic Cell Biology (Research Director: Dr. Philippe Bastiens)

When scientists finished mapping the human genome in 2001, they were in for quite a surprise: Instead of the 80,000 to 130,000 genes that were expected, Homo sapiens has only 20,000 to 30,000 – about the same number as a mouse and just barely more than a simple one-millimetre-long worm with hardly any brain at all.

• Emeritus Department III Physical Biochemistry (Research Director: Dr. Roger S Goody)

In the cells of plants, animals and humans intense activity goes on around the clock. All of the time, millions of proteins are busy transporting materials in and out, burning energy-rich nutrients, building up new molecules and disposing of old ones, fending off pathogens, passing on signals and controlling the activity of genes.

• Department IV Chemical Biology (Research Director: Dr. Herbert Waldmann)

The plan sounded impressive, and garnering plenty of new inexpensive drugs appeared a sure thing. With the advent of synthesis robots at the beginning of the 1990s, the pharma industry could produce thousands of different small molecules in almost no time, and a veritable boom in substance research seemed in the offing. With such an enormous number of new substances available, so it was hoped, many promising candidates for innovative drug development would be found. And soon thereafter, the first “substance libraries” with more than a million compounds were synthesised.

• Department V Mechanistic Cell Biology (Research Director: Dr. Andrea Musacchio)

Our research interests focus on a stage of the eukaryotic cell cycle known as mitosis. During mitosis, the replicated chromosomes in a mother cell undergo equational division to create two daughter cells with a full complement of the genetic material. From a molecular perspective, mitosis is an astoundingly complex process.

Human physiology is a central field of medical research, and seeks to elucidate and explain the fundamental principles that describe the ways in which cells, tissues, organs, organ systems and biological information networks operate and function together in a living organism. Most fundamental principles of human physiology are relevant for warm-blooded animals of mammalia, though not necessarily for cold-blooded reptiles.

External links

• Official website
• Official site Chemical Genomics Centre
• Official site Federation European Physiological Societies
• Official site European Federation for Pharmaceutical Sciences
• Official site European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry
• Official site Federation of European Biochemical Societies