Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology

We are an international team of cell biologists, structural biologists, physicist and chemists engaged in a young, future-oriented research field: systems biology.

The goal of our work is not to investigate individual elements of cells or tissues, but rather to obtain an integrated picture of all processes which regulate the metabolism, growth and proliferation of living organisms.

The reason: Genes and proteins are not static building blocks of life. Rather, they are more like capricious divas: How they behave depends to a great extent on their surroundings and their respective contacts. And it is precisely this social behavior of the molecules which determines whether a cell stays healthy or not.

To unravel these networks, researchers from different disciplines are venturing together into the nanocosmos and are exploring at the atomic level. This includes elucidating the structure of individual molecules, live imaging of the cell interior, and even the synthesis of chemical substances, which can influence the dynamics of specific molecules. Our focus is on basic research – with a clear objective: We are striving to understand the collective behavior of the involved molecules, because this is crucial to understanding complex diseases like cancer.