Welcome to the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology

We are an international team of cell biologists, structural biologists, physicist and chemists engaged in a young, future-oriented research field: systems biology.

The goal of our work is not to investigate individual elements of cells or tissues, but rather to obtain an integrated picture of all processes which regulate the metabolism, growth and proliferation of living organisms.

The reason: Genes and proteins are not static building blocks of life. Rather, they are more like capricious divas: How they behave depends to a great extent on their surroundings and their respective contacts. And it is precisely this social behavior of the molecules which determines whether a cell stays healthy or not.

To unravel these networks, researchers from different disciplines are venturing together into the nanocosmos and are exploring at the atomic level. This includes elucidating the structure of individual molecules, live imaging of the cell interior, and even the synthesis of chemical substances, which can influence the dynamics of specific molecules.

Our focus is on basic research – with a clear objective: We are striving to understand the collective behavior of the involved molecules, because this is crucial to understanding complex diseases like cancer.

Prof. Dr. Herbert Waldmann

Managing Director
Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology

Events and Seminars

Lecture on Monday, May 13, 2013 at 5.00 p.m., lecture hall

Speaker: Dr. Jeffrey Iwig,
Kuriyan Lab, University of California, Berkeley, USA

Title: "Mechanisms of autoinhibition of the Ras-specific exchange factor RasGRP1"

Hosts: Prof. Dr. Philippe Bastiaens and Prof. Dr. Alfred Wittinghofer

Lecture on Tuesday, May 14th, 2013 at 5.00 p.m., lecture hall

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Patricia Bassereau,
Laboratoire Physico-Chimie, Institut Curie, Paris

Title: "Some roles of membrane curvature in intracellular trafficking"

Host: Prof. Dr. Roger Goody

Lecture on Tuesday, May 21st, 2013 at 5.00 p.m., lecture hall

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Kirill Alexandrov,
Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), The University of Queensland, Australia

Title: "Synthetic sensing and signaling transduction cascades based on artificial autoinhibited proteases"

Host: Prof. Dr. Roger Goody

Lecture on Monday, May 27th 2013 at 1.00 p.m., lecture hall

Speaker: Dr. Puck Knipscheer,
Hubrecht Institute for Developmental Biology and Stem Cell Research, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Title: "Dissecting the molecular mechanism of DNA interstrand cross link repair"

Host: Dr. Gerben Vader

Lecture on Friday, May 31st 2013 at 11:00 a.m., lecture hall

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Stephen B. Kent,
Department of Chemistry, The University of Chicago

Title: "Through the Looking Glass: Racemic Protein Crystallography and D-Protein Therapeutics"

Host: Prof. Dr. Martin Engelhard

Job Oppertunities