Max-Planck-Institut für medizinische Forschung

The institute was founded in 1930 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute to introduce methods of physics and chemistry into basic medical research. The Departments of Chemistry, Physiology and Biophysics concentrated on biophysical and chemical issues, in the tradition of the Institute's natural product chemistry. New developments in biology were taken into account in the 1960s with a Department of Molecular Biology. At the end of the 1980s and during the 1990s, studies on specific functions of muscle and nerve cells were added. New departments for Cell Physiology (1989), Molecular Cell Research (1992-1999), Molecular Neurobiology (1995), Biomedical Optics (1999) and Biomolecular Mechanisms (2002) were founded. In addition, the junior research groups Ion Channel Structure (1997-2003), Developmental Genetics (1999-2005), Neurophysiology of Behavior (2008) and Developmental Genetics of the Nervous System (2008) were established. Five Nobel Prize winners have worked at the Institute since its foundation: Meyerhof (Physiology), Kuhn (Chemistry), Bothe (Physics), Mößbauer (Physics) and Sakmann (Physiology or Medicine). The Institute currently has three departments and two independent junior research groups. The Department of Molecular Neurobiology focuses on the analysis and modification in the mouse of genes whose products are responsible for rapid signal transmission in the brain and investigates the question of which brain functions are inherited and which are acquired. The Department of Biomedical Optics determines the activity of groups of nerve cells in tissue preparations and in intact animals using and further developing multi-quantum microscopy. The aim of the work of the Biomolecular Mechanisms department is to elucidate the molecular basis of model reactions using biophysical and structural biological investigations.