__NOTOC__ The Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) is a

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary ...

research institute located in

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

. It was founded in 1998 and was fully operational in 2001. More than twenty research groups work in

molecular biology Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and phys ...

cell biology Cell biology (also cellular biology or cytology) is a branch of biology that studies the structure, function, and behavior of cells. All living organisms are made of cells. A cell is the basic unit of life that is responsible for the living an ...

developmental biology Developmental biology is the study of the process by which animals and plants grow and develop. Developmental biology also encompasses the biology of regeneration, asexual reproduction, metamorphosis, and the growth and differentiation of st ...

biophysics Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations. ...

, and

systems biology Systems biology is the computational and mathematical analysis and modeling of complex biological systems. It is a biology-based interdisciplinary field of study that focuses on complex interactions within biological systems, using a holistic ...

supported by various facilities.

Research

The fundamental scientific questions of the MPI-CBG are: How do cells form tissues? and How do tissues form organisms? The research in the institute encompasses many topics from

molecular A molecule is a group of two or more atoms held together by attractive forces known as chemical bonds; depending on context, the term may or may not include ions which satisfy this criterion. In quantum physics, organic chemistry, and bio ...

, cellular, and

as well as from

. An incomplete list of individual topics follows:

molecular motors Molecular motors are natural (biological) or artificial molecular machines that are the essential agents of movement in living organisms. In general terms, a motor is a device that consumes energy in one form and converts it into motion or mecha ...

neural development The development of the nervous system, or neural development (neurodevelopment), refers to the processes that generate, shape, and reshape the nervous system of animals, from the earliest stages of embryonic development to adulthood. The fiel ...

cell division Cell division is the process by which a parent cell divides into two daughter cells. Cell division usually occurs as part of a larger cell cycle in which the cell grows and replicates its chromosome(s) before dividing. In eukaryotes, there ...

, lipid rafts,

endocytosis Endocytosis is a cellular process in which substances are brought into the cell. The material to be internalized is surrounded by an area of cell membrane, which then buds off inside the cell to form a vesicle containing the ingested material. ...

embryogenesis An embryo is an initial stage of development of a multicellular organism. In organisms that reproduce sexually, embryonic development is the part of the life cycle that begins just after fertilization of the female egg cell by the male spe ...

, regeneration.

Organisation

The MPI-CBG is headed by five tenured directors or group leaders –

Anthony Hyman Anthony Hyman (17 April 1946 – 19 December 1999) was a British academic, writer, broadcaster, and Islamicist. Anthony Hyman was a son of the author, journalist, and film writer Alan Hyman (1910–1999). His siblings were the author Mir ...

(UK) as managing director, Marino Zerial (Italy), Anne Grapin-Botton (France), Stephan Grill (Germany),

Eugene Myers Eugene Wimberly "Gene" Myers, Jr. (born December 31, 1953) is an American computer scientist and bioinformatician, who is best known for contributing to the early development of the NCBI's BLAST tool for sequence analysis. Education Myers receiv ...

(US), – and a chief operating officer (Ivan Baines). Together with the directors' groups, 23 independent research groups led by untenured principal investigators and about 21 facilities make up the work force of the institute. In total, the institute employs around 550 people of whom about half are not German. The flat organisation and the absence of department divisions fosters direct communication and a slim administration.

Networking

The MPI-CBG is located next to research centers of the

Technische Universität Dresden TU Dresden (for german: Technische Universität Dresden, abbreviated as TUD and often wrongly translated as "Dresden University of Technology") is a public research university, the largest institute of higher education in the city of Dresden, th ...

(TUD), including the

Biotechnology Center of the TUD Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used by ...

, the Center for Regenerative Therapies (CRTD) at TUD, the

B CUBE - Center for Molecular Bioengineering B, or b, is the second letter of the Latin-script alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''bee'' (pronounced ), plural ''bees''. It rep ...

. In proximity of the MPI-CBG is also the University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus Dresden, the Medical Theoretical Centre (MTZ) and the BioInnovationsZentrum (BIOZ). The MPI-CBG has collaborations with its neighbouring research institutes and with other centres in the city like the

Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems The Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex systems is one of the 80 institutes of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, located in Dresden, Germany. Research The research at the institute in the field of the physics of complex systems rang ...

(MPI-PKS). Together with the MPI-PKS and the TUD, the MPI-CBG founded the

Center for Systems Biology Dresden Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricity ...

(CSBD). This center develops theoretical and computational approaches to biological systems across different scales, from molecules to cells and from cells to tissues. The MPI-CBG is also part of DRESDEN-concept, a research alliance of the TUD together with the four major research institutions – Max Planck, Helmholtz, Fraunhofer, and Leibniz – and the research-active museums in Dresden. It also collaborates with institutions abroad. In addition, it operates an international PhD program together with the aforementioned neighbours.

References

External links

Homepage of the institute

Homepage of the institute's international PhD programme
{{Max Planck Society Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics Genetics in Germany Molecular biology institutes