Just concentrate on your studies! We will financially support you with a stipend during your Master’s and a working contract during the PhD phase of the graduate program.

Conduct cutting-edge research at the forefront of Matter to Life, a highly interdisciplinary and rapidly emerging field. With a student body from across the globe, our program is taught entirely in English.

During our integrated graduate program, you will be supervised by one or more of our MPS MtL Fellows and profit from the broad and excellent School’s network.

Our graduates are prepared for a broad spectrum of careers — from academia, research management and industrial R&D to consulting, data science, and many more. Whichever path you choose, we will equip you with the skills and experience to thrive.

Lecture topic: Engineering Optical Nanoscale Tools with DNA
Optical labels and sensors are invaluable tools for understanding biological processes and dissecting disease mechanisms. The advent of single-molecule and super-resolution imaging techniques has placed increasingly stringent demands on these probes, necessitating high photostability for labels and single-molecule sensitivity with high optical contrast for sensors. This lecture will discuss our recent efforts to address these challenges by combining single-molecule imaging with DNA nanotechnology. Specifically, we utilize DNA origami to decouple sensing from signal output, enabling the creation of modular and tunable sensor platforms that exhibit both large Förster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) contrast and single-molecule sensitivity (Nat. Nanotech. 2025, 20, 303). The inherent modularity of this DNA origami approach allows for the development of single-molecule sensors targeting diverse analytes, including nucleic acids, antibodies, and enzymes, simply by exchanging sensing elements. Furthermore, the incorporation of multiple sensor elements facilitates cooperativity, tunable dynamic range, and advanced logic sensing operations. While DNA nanotechnology holds immense promise for biomedical applications, its widespread utility is often limited by the inherent instability of DNA nanostructures within complex biochemical environments. In the lecture I will also discuss our ongoing research aimed at understanding and enhancing the addressability and functionality of DNA nanodevices, leveraging the power of single-molecule and super-resolution imaging (Adv. Mater. 2023, 35, 2212024; Small 2025, in press).

Lecture topic: Droplets Come to Life
Droplets, which organize the cytosol of present-day cells, might have played a crucial role in the origin of life. These droplets form complex, active entities, which exhibit surprisingly many traits commonly associated with living creatures. In this talk, I will demonstrate physical principles of how molecules spontaneously organize into droplets. These droplets form well-defined entities separated from their surroundings and can metabolize elements in their vicinity to control their size and shape, move around, and even divide. Despite these hallmarks of life, current models lack the internal complexity required for information processing and the adaptation necessary for evolution. I will briefly speculate on how we could incorporate these aspects in the future.

Irene completed her lab rotations with MtL Fellows Wolfram Zimmermann and David Zwicker, who collaborated to design the project she worked on.

Mussa completed his practical training on “Signalling Dynamics in Tissue Repair” with MtL Fellow Philippe (†) Bastiaens at MPI of Molecular Physiology

Andrey explored his research passions during his lab rotation in a collaborative project led by MtL Fellows Hendrik Dietz and Petra Schwille, which took him into the rapidly developing world of protein design.

This is not the beginning of a joke, but rather the beginning of every MtL Day—and the MtL Fall Day 2025 in Mainz was no exception. PhD candidates from diverse backgrounds and Fellows from various disciplines convened as knowledge was shared, exchanged, absorbed, and amplified. This year’s host: The Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz. 

In August, a group of MtL PhD candidates, Fellows and invited speakers  gathered at the Umweltforschungsstation Schneefernerhaus on the Zugspitze for four days of talks, workshops, and stargazing.
Read the recap! 

Starting in October, there will be 18 new MtL Fellows, creating 18 new opportunities for our PhD candidates to pursue exciting research projects. 

Get a glimpse into their research!