Research center caesar

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Caesar foundation
legal form Foundation, endowment
founding July 11, 1995
Seat Bonn
purpose research
Chair Martin Stratmann (Board of Trustees)
sales 18,384,162 euros (2018)
Foundation capital 391,433,918 euros (2018)
Employees 224 (2019)
Website www.caesar.de
Forecourt (2014)
"Office Wave" (2014)
Aerial view from the north (2010)

The Center of Advanced European Studies and Research ( caesar ) is a neuroscientific research institute based in Bonn , which is associated with the Max Planck Society .

Caesar researches the boundaries between neuroscience , cell biology and biophysics using kinetic, microscopic, spectroscopic and behavioral methods. The focus is on the research field of neuroethology . Here, the researchers are investigating how animal behavior emerges from the collective activity of the multitude of networked neurons in the brain.

structure

Caesar is a foundation under private law whose capital comes from public funds. The research center is operated from the income from the foundation's capital.

The caesar foundation board is made up of representatives from the federal government, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the city of Bonn and representatives from science and industry. A board of directors appointed by the board of trustees, consisting of the scientific directors and the commercial management, manages the day-to-day business of the research center and is the legal representative of the foundation. An advisory board advises the foundation on scientific issues.

Caesar is associated with the Max Planck Society (MPG). The President of the Max Planck Society is Chairman of the Board of Trustees; his representative is the vice president of the MPG for the biological-medical section. In addition, six directors from Max Planck Institutes are members of the Board of Trustees.

research

Research focus

The institute deals with the question of how the collective activity of the very high number of interconnected neurons in the brain causes the diverse range of animal behavior . This link between research into how the brain works ( neurobiology ) and behavioral biology is known as “ neuroethology ”. The research groups and departments represent a combination of experimental and computer-based approaches that deal with the question of how the brain controls behavior. Research covers a wide range of different scales, from mapping the brain on a nanoscale to large-scale, functional mapping of thousands of nerve cells in the brain, to the quantification of natural animal behavior.

One of the greatest challenges in neuroscience is to integrate the research results of the different levels so that the behavior of an animal can be understood based on the activity of the neural circuits ; because ultimately it is important how an animal uses the calculations in the brain and not how individual calculations take place independently of one another. The particular difficulty here is that the link between brain function and behavior can only be investigated in behavioral animals and investigations in the active brain mean considerable technical challenges. If both the experimental and computational technical hurdles can be overcome, this approach will enable some of the biggest unanswered questions in neuroscience to be answered, such as how the brain creates a dynamic model of its environment, how it makes decisions, and how it enables complex social behavior.

Scientific competence is behind the development of new technologies, both in experimental instrumentation and in computer-aided modeling and methods of data analysis. In addition to the technological breadth of the research groups and departments at caesar, the neuroethological issues are of a comparative nature and relate to a large number of different genera, which means that a large repertoire of behavior can be examined throughout the animal kingdom.

Research groups

Several research groups are based at caesar:

  • Computer-Aided Neuroethology - Research Group Kevin Briggman: The aim of the research group is to develop computer models that can predict targeted behavior in animals.
  • Organization of the Brain and Behavior - Jason Kerr Research Group: Kerr and his colleagues investigate how mammals make decisions based on their eyesight.
  • Digitization of the brain - Marcel Oberlaender research group: The overarching goal is to understand how the interplay between biophysical, synaptic , cellular and network mechanisms in the mammalian brain can code perception and trigger behavioral responses.
  • Neural Circuits - Research Group Johannes Seelig: Optical microscopy methods are used to investigate how neural networks change and how these changes influence behavior.
  • Neurobiology of flight control - Bettina Schnell research group: The research focus is on the neural circuits and calculations on which the course control during the flight of Drosophila is based.
  • Structural dynamics of proteins - Elmar Behrmann research group: Elmar Behrmann's research group investigates the dynamics of proteins using electron microscopy.
  • Neurobiology of the Magnetic Sense - Research Group Pascal Malkemper: The research focus of the Malkemper department is on researching how animals recognize the earth's magnetic field and use it for orientation.
  • Neural information flow - Monika Scholz research group: Monika Scholz and her team are dedicated to the foraging behavior of the nematode C. elegans . To explore basic principles of signal compression, attention and context dependence in neural systems.
  • Lise Meitner Group Cellular Computations and Learning - Research Group Aneta Koseska: The working group researches the basic dynamics of biochemical computations and single-cell learning processes. Your goal is to develop a general theory that describes the processes at the level of biochemical networks in individual cells.
  • Emeritus Group Molecular Neurosensors - Research Group U. Benjamin Kaupp: This research group investigates signal processing in cells. One wants to understand how stimuli are detected by cells and converted into a cellular response.
  • Max Planck Group Chemical Biology - Research Group M. Famulok: This research group deals with the structure elucidation and effects of biomolecules . In addition, they develop DNA nanomachines that can perform defined functions, as well as "aptamer-like" nanocarriers for the intracellular distribution of various molecules.

history

The establishment of the caesar research center goes back to the agreement based on the Berlin / Bonn law on compensatory measures for the Bonn region (1994), which provided, among other things, to compensate for the job losses associated with the relocation of the seat of government to Berlin (1999) Promote science in the region. The federal and state governments provided foundation capital of DM 750 million , of which DM 190 million was earmarked for the construction of a new research center. The foundation was launched on July 11, 1995.

Due to the physical requirements of a scientific research institute, the decision was made in favor of the Rheinaue in Bonn , where interference from railway systems, power lines or navigation on the Rhine was excluded. At the end of 1998, the Bonn city council approved the Rheinaue location, which means that for the first time since the amusement park was completed (1979) a property belonging to it could be built on. For the new building, the foundation organized a limited architectural competition with six participants in 1999 , from which the architectural office Bachmann / Marx / Brechenbauer in Munich came out victorious with 1st place and was commissioned to realize it. The Munich landscape architect Gottfried Hansjakob - who was previously involved in the design of the Rheinaue theme park - was commissioned to design the garden . The foundation stone for the new building was laid on 29 . May 2001, completion in April 2003 and the inauguration ceremony on May 30, 2003.

The founding director was Karl-Heinz Hoffmann , who built the foundation and the research center from 1999 to 2005. Kevin Briggman has been Managing Director of caesar since June 2017.

art

There are three sculptures by the Cologne artist Lutz Fritsch on the grounds of the research center . The ensemble is called Far Nearness . Part of it is a 25 m high, red lacquered stele with a diameter of 0.5 m, which stands directly in front of the main entrance. At the top of the tubular stele are green lights that represent Morse code over short and long light sequences . Texts are sent from and via the caesar. The counterpart is located on the side of the site facing the Rhine. It has the same dimensions as the stele, but is painted yellow and built horizontally. In the building, as the third part of the ensemble, there are square, red and yellow lacquered aluminum panels in different sizes. As “concentrated color energy”, they should represent “the many intermediate steps on the way from the idea to the end product”.

Individual evidence

  1. About the Institute - The Caesar Foundation ( Memento of the original from September 12, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Caesar Research Center  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.caesar.de
  2. a b The Lord Mayor of Bonn (Ed.); Friedrich Busmann : From the parliament and government district to the federal district. A Bonn development measure 1974-2004 . Bonn, June 2004.
  3. ^ Foundation Caesar Research Center , Brechensbauer Weinhart + Partner Architects
  4. About the institute - building ( Memento of the original from October 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Caesar Research Center  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.caesar.de
  5. ^ Francis Hugenroth: "Far near": Space for art at the new caesar research center. caesar - center of advanced european studies and research, press release of March 12, 2003 at the Informationsdienst Wissenschaft (idw-online.de), accessed on January 9, 2018.

Web links

Commons : Research center caesar  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 50 ° 42 ′ 14.5 ″  N , 7 ° 9 ′ 3.9 ″  E