New innovation campus
Photo: Rothe
Heidelberg will be home to a new ‘innovation campus’ for the life sciences called ‘Heidelberg 4 Life’. To this end, the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science is funding a new building that will represent a research bridge between Heidelberg University and the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research. The funding scheme is part of the planned ‘Biology at the Nanoscale’ research network that was initiated by Nobel laureate Professor Stefan Hell.
The ministry will provide 25 million euros in funding for the new building. A corresponding declaration of intent was signed by the minister of science, research and the arts, Theresia Bauer, the president of the Max Planck Society, Professor Martin Stratmann and the president of Heidelberg University, Professor Bernhard Eitel. Also present at the signing were Professor Hell, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, and the director of the Center for Molecular Biology of Heidelberg University (ZMBH), Professor Bernd Bukau.
With the ‘Biology at the Nanoscale’ research network, the University—in particular the ZMBH—and the Max Planck Institute want to intensify their cooperation in the field of bioscientific and biomedical basic research. To this end, the partners also plan to involve additional local institutions and develop contacts with industry for the transfer of research into application. This will be the second innovation campus in Baden-Württemberg, after the ‘Cyber Valley’ campus that focuses on artificial intelligence. Its objective is to recruit highly qualified junior researchers and strengthen a science-driven, dynamic start-up culture aimed at making ground-breaking discoveries.
The network intends to investigate molecular systems in the life sciences through the integration of physics, chemistry, molecular biology and genome research. With this novel approach, researchers hope to understand life processes at the nanolevel and shed light on the causes of diseases. The planned new building, which will be located in the immediate vicinity of the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research on the Neuenheimer Feld Campus, offers room for research groups and the required research infrastructure, such as high-performance light microscopy, single-cell technologies and a laboratory for biochemical-chemical work.
During the signing of the declaration of intent in March 2018, Martin Stratmann announced that the Max Planck Society will also invest in the ‘Biology at the Nanoscale’ research network: The society will commit 50 million euros towards an annex building for the MPI for Medical Research. The research team of Stefan Hell, winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, are working on new types of light microscopes that allow scientists to observe processes in living cells at an unprecedented level of resolution.
