Faculty at the Max Planck School Matter to Life

In the Matter to Life Program, you will experience first-class training, highly interdisciplinary teaching and research opportunities from outstanding experts across Germany. Our faculty is currently constituted of 50 Fellows and 11 Adjunct Fellows.
Below you will find a list of all MPS MtL Fellows, i.e. your potential PhD supervisors. Please visit the websites of the respective partner institutions to learn more about the research work of a specific Fellow.

Karen Alim

Karen Alim

MtL research focus:
Biological Physics: Self-Organization of Shape and Function
Philippe Bastiaens

Philippe Bastiaens

MtL research focus:
Out-of-equilibrium biochemical 'life-like' systems
Andreas Bausch

Andreas Bausch

MtL research focus:
Organoids & Active Cytoskeletal Systems
Timo Betz

Timo Betz

MtL research focus:
Active mechanics of cells and cellular assemblies
Eberhard Bodenschatz

Eberhard Bodenschatz

MtL research focus:
Fluid Physics, Pattern Formation and Biocomplexity
Heike Böhm

Heike Böhm

MtL research focus:
Glycans in Synthetic Biology
Job Boekhoven

Job Boekhoven

MtL research focus:
Synthesis of Life
Michael Boutros

Michael Boutros

MtL research focus:
Engineering of genomes and tissues
Dieter Braun

Dieter Braun

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
MtL research focus:
We are performing physico-chemical experiments to recreate Darwinian evolution from scratch. Our goal is to provide a working model of how life could have originated from a few RNA nucleotides in the volcanic environments of the early Earth. This will also reveal novel biotechnological applications, an example from the past is NanoTemper Technologies.
E. Ada Cavalcanti-Adam

E. Ada Cavalcanti-Adam

MtL research focus:
Molecular and Cellular Mechanobiology
Peter Comba (em.)

Peter Comba (em.)

MtL research focus:
Inorganic Biochemistry and Imaging
Laura De Laporte

Laura De Laporte

MtL research focus:
Advanced Materials for Biomedicine
Hendrik Dietz

Hendrik Dietz

MtL research focus:
Biomolecular Self-Assembly & Controlling Molecular Motions
Stefan Diez

Stefan Diez

MtL Research Focus:
Molecular Transport in Cell Biology and Nanotechnology
Tobias Erb

Tobias Erb

MtL reseach focus:
Synthetic Biochemistry: New-to-nature Enzymes, Synthetic Pathways & Articifial Cells for CO2 fixation
Erwin Frey

Erwin Frey

MtL research focus:
Theoretical Physics of Living Systems: Self-organisation, Fluctuations, and Pattern Formation
Kerstin Göpfrich

Kerstin Göpfrich

MtL research focus:
Biophysical Engineering of Synthetic Cells with DNA Nanotechnology and 3D Printing
Frauke Gräter

Frauke Gräter

MtL research focus:
Molecular Mechanisms of Mechano-Sensing
Stephan Grill

Stephan Grill

MtL research focus:
Physics of life - Self-organization of living matter
Helmut Grubmüller

Helmut Grubmüller

MtL research focus:
Biomolecular mechanism and function by theoretical biophysics and computer simulations
Michael Grunze

Michael Grunze

Jochen Guck

Jochen Guck

Andreas  Herrmann

Andreas Herrmann

MtL research focus:
Macromolecular Materials and Systems – Sonopharmacology and Sonogenetics
Anthony Hyman

Anthony Hyman

MtL research focus:
Biomolecular Condensates


Copyright picture: Sven Döring
Karin Jacobs

Karin Jacobs

MtL research focus:
Experimental soft matter and biophysics: Adhesion of biomolecules and bacteria and parasites
Andreas Janshoff

Andreas Janshoff

MtL research focus:
Mechanics of Living Matter
Stefan Klumpp

Stefan Klumpp

MtL research focus:
Theoretical Biophysics - Physical basis of biological function
Sarah Köster

Sarah Köster

MtL research focus:
Cellular Biophysics - Mechanics and Dynamics of the Cytoskeleton
Hans-Georg Kräusslich

Hans-Georg Kräusslich

MtL research focus:
Retroviral and Influenza Virus (IAV) Biology
Katharina  Landfester

Katharina Landfester

MtL research focus:
Nanoparticle protein interaction & Nanocarriers for drug delivery
Reinhard Lipowsky (em.)

Reinhard Lipowsky (em.)

Martin Möller (em.)

Martin Möller (em.)

MtL research focus:
Oligomer and Polymer building blocks for medicine and biological application
Thorsten Moos

Thorsten Moos

MtL research focus:
Bioethics


Copyright picture: Universität Heidelberg, Kommunikation und Marketing
Marcus Müller

Marcus Müller

MtL research focus:
Statistical Physics and Simulation of Biological and Soft Matter
Andrea Musacchio

Andrea Musacchio

MtL research focus:
In vitro reconstitution of cell division
Andrij Pich

Andrij Pich

MtL research focus:
Functional & interactive polymers for biomedical and sustainable materials


Copyright picture: Fabio Sentek, DWI – Leibniz-Institut für Interaktive Materialien
Joachim Rädler

Joachim Rädler

MtL research focus:
Soft Matter Physics and Lipid Nanoscience in Living Systems

Matthias Rief

MtL research focus:
Molecular Biophysics - Function and Folding processes of proteins
 Tim  Salditt

Tim Salditt

MtL research focus:
Structure of biomolecular assemblies and X-ray imaging
Franziska Schoenebeck

Franziska Schoenebeck

MtL research focus:
Origins of chemical phenomena at a molecular level. Synthesis and homogeneous catalysis
Ulrich Schubert

Ulrich Schubert

MtL research focus:
Materials for Life Science
Ulrich Schwarz

Ulrich Schwarz

MtL research focus:
Soft Matter and biological physics - Forces and elasticity in cell adhesion
Petra Schwille

Petra Schwille

MtL research focus:
Cell and Membrane Biophysics & Synthetic Biology
Christine Selhuber-Unkel

Christine Selhuber-Unkel

MtL research focus:
Molecular Systems Engineering - Materials and Bioenvironments


Copyright picture: Universität Heidelberg, Kommunikation und Marketing
Friedrich Simmel

Friedrich Simmel

MtL research focus:
Physics of synthetic biosystems
Joachim Spatz

Joachim Spatz

MtL research focus:
Cellular Biophysics - Engineering of Synthetic Cells
Claudia  Steinem

Claudia Steinem

MtL research focus:
Biomolecular Chemistry
Jörg Stülke

Jörg Stülke

MtL research focus:

Our research focuses on the holistic understanding of a simple organism, the model bacterium Bacillus subtilis. We try to achieve this goal by a combination of different approaches:

- Reduction of the genome to the possible minimum
- Investigation of unknown proteins and functions 
- Identification and characterization of protein-protein interactions at a global scale
- Development of genome annotation tools and databases

Kai Sundmacher

Kai Sundmacher

MtL research focus:
Biosystems engineering and artificial life-like systems
Franziska Thomas

Franziska Thomas

MtL research focus:
Functional Materials, Miniproteins and Protein Aggregation

Hans-Robert Volpp

MtL research focus:
Analysis of homogeneous and heterogeneous chemical reaction systems

Andreas Walther

Tanja Weil

Tanja Weil

MtL research focus:
Supramolecular Biomaterials to Control Cellular Functions
Richard Wombacher

Richard Wombacher

MtL research focus:
Selective Protein Labeling & Bioorthogonal Chemistry


Copyright picture: Marie Staggat
Martin Zacharias

Martin Zacharias

MtL research focus:
Molecular dynamics of biomolecules
Wolfram-Hubertus Zimmermann

Wolfram-Hubertus Zimmermann

MtL research focus:
Engineering of Organotypic Tissue Models from Pluripotent Stem Cells
David Zwicker

David Zwicker

MtL research focus:
Theoretical Biophysics: Self-Organization and Pattern Formation of Soft Matter
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