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 currently constitutes of 50 Fellows who are selected and appointed for a period of four years as well as 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.

Image of Karen Alim

Karen Alim

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

Philippe Bastiaens

(1963-2025)
We are deeply saddened by the news of the demise of Philippe Bastiaens who was a valued Fellow of the MPS MtL since its founding.  In tribute to his legacy, our students have shared what Philippe meant to them personally and to the Matter to Life initiative.
Image of Andreas Bausch

Andreas Bausch

MtL research focus:
Organoids & Active Cytoskeletal Systems
Image of Timo Betz

Timo Betz

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

Eberhard Bodenschatz

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

Heike Böhm

MtL research focus:
Glycans in Synthetic Biology
Image of Job Boekhoven

Job Boekhoven

MtL research focus:
Synthesis of Life
Image of Michael Boutros

Michael Boutros

MtL research focus:
Engineering of genomes and tissues
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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.
Image of E. Ada Cavalcanti-Adam

E. Ada Cavalcanti-Adam

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

Peter Comba (em.)

MtL research focus:
Inorganic Biochemistry and Imaging
Image of Laura De Laporte

Laura De Laporte

MtL research focus:
Advanced Materials for Biomedicine
Image of Hendrik Dietz

Hendrik Dietz

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

Stefan Diez

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

Tobias Erb

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

Erwin Frey

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

Kerstin Göpfrich

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

Frauke Gräter

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

Stephan Grill

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

Helmut Grubmüller

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

Michael Grunze

Image of Jochen Guck

Jochen Guck

Image of Laura Heinen

Laura Heinen

MtL research focus:
Bottom-up engineering of synthetic cells, metabolically active materials, life-like systems, out-of-equilibrium reaction networks, membrane proteins
Image of Andreas  Herrmann

Andreas Herrmann

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

Anthony Hyman

MtL research focus:
Biomolecular Condensates


Copyright picture: Sven Döring
Image of Karin Jacobs

Karin Jacobs

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

Andreas Janshoff

MtL research focus:
Mechanics of Living Matter
Image of Stefan Klumpp

Stefan Klumpp

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

Sarah Köster

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

Hans-Georg Kräusslich

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

Katharina Landfester

MtL research focus:
Nanoparticle protein interaction & Nanocarriers for drug delivery
Image of Franziska Lautenschläger

Franziska Lautenschläger

Saarland University, Saarbrücken
MtL reserach focus:
Cytoskeletal steering of cellular behavior
Image of Reinhard Lipowsky (em.)

Reinhard Lipowsky (em.)

Image of Martin Möller (em.)

Martin Möller (em.)

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

Thorsten Moos

MtL research focus:
Bioethics


Copyright picture: Universität Heidelberg, Kommunikation und Marketing
Image of Marcus Müller

Marcus Müller

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

Andrea Musacchio

MtL research focus:
In vitro reconstitution of cell division
Image of Wolfram  Pernice

Wolfram Pernice

Kirchhoff Institute for Physics, Heidelberg University
MtL research focus:
Biohybrid systems
Image of 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
Image of 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
Image of  Tim  Salditt

Tim Salditt

MtL research focus:
Structure of biomolecular assemblies and X-ray imaging
Image of Roman Sarott

Roman Sarott

MtL research focus:
Chemical Biology, Chemically Induced Proximity
Image of Thomas Scheibel

Thomas Scheibel

Image of Franziska Schoenebeck

Franziska Schoenebeck

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

Ulrich Schubert

MtL research focus:
Materials for Life Science
Image of Ulrich Schwarz

Ulrich Schwarz

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

Petra Schwille

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

Christine Selhuber-Unkel

MtL research focus:
Molecular Systems Engineering - Materials and Bioenvironments


Copyright picture: Universität Heidelberg, Kommunikation und Marketing
Image of Friedrich Simmel

Friedrich Simmel

MtL research focus:
Physics of synthetic biosystems
Image of Joachim Spatz

Joachim Spatz

MtL research focus:
Cellular Biophysics - Engineering of Synthetic Cells
Image of Oskar Staufer

Oskar Staufer

INM – Leibniz Institute for New Materials, Saarbrücken & Max Planck Bristol Center for Minimal Biology
MtL research focus:
Synthetic immunology, cancer immune evasion, synthetic tissues
Image of Claudia  Steinem

Claudia Steinem

MtL research focus:
Biomolecular Chemistry
Image of 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

Image of Kai Sundmacher

Kai Sundmacher

MtL research focus:
Biosystems engineering and artificial life-like systems
Image of 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

Image of Tanja Weil

Tanja Weil

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

Richard Wombacher

MtL research focus:
Selective Protein Labeling & Bioorthogonal Chemistry


Copyright picture: Marie Staggat
Image of Martin Zacharias

Martin Zacharias

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

Wolfram-Hubertus Zimmermann

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

David Zwicker

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