Max Planck Fellows and External Scientific Members
The MPIB not only cooperates with universities in Germany, but also with research institutions all over the world.
For research to be successful, the transfer of knowledge and new ideas are essential. Therefore, the Max Planck Society (MPG) strengthens collaboration between its institutes and the universities through different programs: It recruits excellent university professors who as Max Planck Fellows lead a research group within the MPG, parallel to their work at the university. The appointment of emeritus professors is also possible. Cooperative projects with external institutions promote scientific exchange as well.
Max Planck Fellow
Professor Walter Neupert dedicates his work to mitochondria also after his retirement from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) Munich. With his research group at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (MPIB), he studies the underlying genetic mechanisms of their complex architecture. Mitochondria are the cellular power stations and supply cells with the energy they need. Given that they derive from bacteria which were integrated into other cells, large protein complexes transport molecules from the cell interior to the mitochondria and back. Neupert was already able to decipher the structure and function of these complexes.
External Scientific Members
Scientific members are Professor James A. Spudich (Professor of Biochemistry, Stanford University School of Medicine, USA), Professor Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker (former DFG President and founder of the LMU Gene Center in Munich), Professor Magdalena Götz (LMU Biomedical Center in Munich), and Professor Karl-Peter Hopfner of the LMU Gene Center in Munich.
neural stem cells, neurogenesis, fate specification, brain injury, neural repair
Structural Molecular Biology
Professor of Biochemistry, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, USA
former DFG President and founder of the LMU Gene Center in Munich