Max Planck Institute for Biology

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The Max Planck Institute for Biology in Tübingen emerged in 1949 from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology in Berlin-Dahlem , which was founded in 1912, and was a non-university research facility sponsored by the Max Planck Society (MPG). It was closed on January 31, 2004 as part of consolidation measures in the MPG.

history

The first directors of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology , founded in 1912, were the botanist and geneticist Carl Correns and the embryologist Hans Spemann . Other well-known scientific members from the early days, such as Otto Warburg or Richard Goldschmidt , only took up their posts after the end of the First World War . Spemann left as early as 1919, Correns died in 1933, Goldschmidt emigrated to America in 1936.

Because of the increasing bombing of Berlin during World War II , important parts of the institute were relocated to Hechingen , Trins and Seefeld (Upper Bavaria) in 1943 and to Tübingen in 1945, where Alfred Kühn , since 1937 2nd director and since May 1945 managing director of the institute, was professor for Was zoology. In 1949 it was renamed the Max Planck Institute for Biology. The first new building in Tübingen was completed in 1950, and further buildings were added in the following years, so that the institute finally had addresses on Corrensstrasse, Spemannstrasse and Melanchthonstrasse.

The Max Planck Institute for Virus Research emerged from the institute's virology working group in 1954, which in turn became the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology. A department headed by Werner Reichardt emerged from a cybernetics research group established at the institute in 1958 , and in 1968 it was spun off as an independent Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics . In 1993 another department of the institute became the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin.

In 1983 the institute had 124 employees. In 2000 it consisted of three departments. With the retirement of the heads of two departments ( Jan Klein and Peter Overath) and the change of the head of the third department ( Thomas F. Meyer ) to the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, the Max Planck Institute for Biology grew gradually until the beginning of 2004 closed.

research

In the first decades in Berlin-Dahlem, the institute was shaped by the concept of Theodor Boveri , who was intended to be the founding director but could not take up the office for health reasons. Evolutionary biology was not represented. The focus of research was developmental biology, physiology, protozoology and genetics. However, the institute's geneticists initially rejected the theory founded by Thomas Hunt Morgan of the linear arrangement of genes on the chromosomes, which hampered the progress of knowledge.

Genetics, sensory physiology and developmental physiology (especially the processes involved in metamorphosis ) were initially researched mainly on insects, such as butterflies, moths and bees. In addition, frogs and frogs were used as test animals for physiological questions.

Development studies at the institute were initially strongly influenced by Hans Spemann, who researched cell division and demonstrated the embryonic signal center, the Spemann organizer , which was later named after him in transplant experiments on newt embryos . Otto Warburg researched cell physiology, in particular the mitochondrial respiratory chain , the development of cancer and photosynthesis .

Other important research topics were the structure and function of muscles, giant chromosomes in mosquitoes and flies, the differences between euchromatin and heterochromatin, and cell communication in algae and slime molds. The botanists at the institute examined flower formation, reactions to cold stimuli , circadian rhythms , carotenoid biosynthesis, extranuclear organelles such as chloroplasts , plant cultivation from protoplasts without cell walls (mainly on tobacco) and the production of hybrid plants (e.g. from tomato and potato plants) by the fusion of such protoplasts.

A "Workplace for Virus Research" founded in 1941 together with the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biochemistry and IG Farben was dissolved again in 1945, but research into tobacco mosaic viruses and bacteriophages continued at the institute .

Bacteria and the fruit fly Drosophila later replaced frogs and plants as test subjects for the institute's geneticists. In the 1980s, the institute mainly researched the structure, function and biosynthesis of bacterial cell walls and biological membranes. Another focus of my work was immunology, especially transplant rejection. In 2000, the focus was on immunogenetics, membrane biochemistry and infection biology.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The history of the institute from 1912 to 1983 , in: Max Planck Society, reports and communications, 3/83, p. 18 (PDF, 14 MB)
  2. ^ Research Perspectives 2000plus: MPI for Biology ( Memento of March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ).