Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology

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Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology
Category: research Institute
Carrier: Max Planck Society
Legal form of the carrier: Registered association
Seat of the wearer: Munich
Facility location: Tübingen
Type of research: Basic research
Subjects: Natural sciences
Areas of expertise: Developmental biology , biochemistry , genetics , evolutionary biology , molecular biology
Basic funding: Federal government (50%), states (50%)
Management: Andrei N. Lupas (Managing Director)
Employee: approx. 350
Homepage: www.eb.tuebingen.mpg.de

The Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology (MPI EB) is a non-university research institution sponsored by the Max Planck Society (MPG) and is based in Tübingen . The institute primarily conducts basic research in the field of natural sciences in the fields of developmental biology , biochemistry , genetics , evolutionary biology and molecular biology .

history

Today's institute goes back to the establishment of a "Working Group Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biochemistry and Biology to Maintain Virus Research" in 1937 in Berlin-Dahlem . From this a "Workplace for Virus Research" arose in 1941, which was relocated to Tübingen in 1943 and in 1945 was converted into the "Department for Virus Research" at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biochemistry in Tübingen.

After the re-establishment of the Max Planck Society as the successor organization to the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in 1948, the “ Max Planck Institute for Virus Research ” was created in 1954 from the “Department for Virus Research ”. The first directors were Hans Friedrich-Freksa (Department 1, Physical Biology), Gerhard Schramm (Department 2, Biochemistry), Werner Schäfer (Department 3, Animal Virology) and, from 1960, Alfred Gierer (Department 4, Molecular Biology). In 1972 Friedrich Bonhoeffer became head of department 1 (physical biology) and soon afterwards Uli Schwarz became head of biochemistry and Peter Hausen became director of the new department 5 (cell biology).

In 1984 the institute was given its current name "Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology" due to the new focus areas. Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard became director of what is now Department 3 for Genetics in the renamed institute in 1985. In 1998, after the Max Planck Institute for Biology was closed in Tübingen, a department was added to the MPI for Developmental Biology.

After Gierer and Bonhoeffer retired, new focal points emerged, in 1999 Department 4 (Integrative Evolutionary Biology) under Ralf J. Sommer and in 2001 Department 1 (Protein Evolution ) under Andrei Lupas and Department 6 (Molecular Biology) under Detlef Weigel . This was followed in 2005 by Department 2 (Biochemistry) under Elisa Izaurralde , in 2008 Department 5 (Cell Biology) under Gerd Jürgens and in 2016 Department 3 (Microbiome Research) under Ruth E. Ley .

research

The research focus of the institute is divided into the following areas:

  • Protein evolution
    This area investigates the evolution of proteins from prehistoric times to the present. It is believed that the first ancestors of today's proteins were short, non-folding peptides that served as     cofactors in a primitive RNA-based world . From this group of prehistoric peptides increasingly complex proteins evolved through repetition , fusion and recombination . This area also deals with the family tree of proteins. Since proteins (or their genes) are not more strongly bound to an organism than it is to its ecosystem, it happens again and again that proteins colonize new organisms or are displaced in their original organism by other proteins.
  • Evolutionary biology
    This area deals with the genetic and molecular analysis of the evolution of developmental processes in free-living roundworms (Nematoda). In nematodes, developmental processes can be analyzed not only genetically and molecularly, but also at the cellular level. The evolutionary comparison of the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans and the studied satellite organism Pristionchus pacificus provides insights into changes in cellular, genetic and molecular units.
  • Molecular Biology
    A long term goal is to understand variation in adaptive characteristics. As a prerequisite for this, genes must be identified that produce phenotypic diversity in wild plants and animals . The next step is to combine insights into the adaptive consequence of variable properties with a mechanistic understanding of genetic networks. This should make it possible to identify functionally divergent alleles of important genes in populations of wild plants and animals on the basis of sequence analyzes .

Trunk collections

  • Drosophila strain collection
    The strain collection contains around 1700 lines, most of them mutants.
  • Zebrafish stem collection
    The zebrafish stem collection houses around 400 mutant zebrafish lines.

International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS)

The MPI is involved in the International Max Planck Research School from Molecules to Organisms . An IMPRS is an English-language doctoral program that allows a structured doctorate. Further partners are the Friedrich Miescher Laboratory , Tübingen, and several institutes at the University of Tübingen . The IMPRS speakers are Elisa Izaurralde from the MPI for Developmental Biology and Alfred Nordheim from the University of Tübingen.

Infrastructure

At the end of 2006 a total of 295 employees were working at the institute, including 75 scientists and 80 young scientists; In addition, there were 58 externally funded employees and 6 guest researchers in the reporting year.

literature

  • Max Planck Society (ed.): Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Series: Reports and communications of the Max Planck Society, Issue 1997,2, ISSN  0341-7778
  • Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology (BMS) , in: Eckart Henning , Marion Kazemi : Handbook on the history of the institute of the Kaiser Wilhelm / Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science 1911–2011 - data und Quellen , Berlin 2016, Part 1: Institutes and Research Centers AL ( online, PDF, 75 MB ), pp. 430–440 (Chronology of the MPI for Developmental Biology)
  • Workplace for virus research of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biochemistry and Biology / Max Planck Institute for Virus Research (BMS) , in: Eckart Henning, Marion Kazemi: Handbook on the history of the institute of the Kaiser Wilhelm / Max Planck Society for the promotion of Sciences 1911–2011 - Data and Sources , Berlin 2016, Volume 2: Institutes and Research Centers MZ ( online, PDF, 75 MB ) pp. 1608–1618 (Chronology of the MPI for Virus Research and its predecessor institutions)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ see the cooperation partners at http://imprs.tuebingen.mpg.de/de/about-our-imprs/participating-institutes.html
  2. ↑ see also the IMPRS homepage at http://imprs.tuebingen.mpg.de/

Coordinates: 48 ° 32 ′ 13 ″  N , 9 ° 3 ′ 29 ″  E