Max Planck Institute for Medical Research

Max Planck Institute for
Medical Research

Abbreviation	MPImF
Purpose	Basic research
Headquarters	Munich, Germany
Location	Heidelberg, Germany
Acting Director	Winfried Denk
Parent organization	Max Planck Society
Staff	approx. 310
Website	www.mpimf-heidelberg.mpg.de

The Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, Germany, is a facility of the Max Planck Society for basic medical research. Since its foundation, six Nobel Prize laureates worked at the Institute: Otto Fritz Meyerhof (Physiology), Richard Kuhn (Chemistry), Walther Bothe (Physics), André Michel Lwoff (Physiology or Medicine), Rudolf Mößbauer (Physics) and Bert Sakmann (Physiology or Medicine). The Institute has close ties with Heidelberg University.

The institute was opened in 1930 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research, and was re-founded as a Max Planck Institute in 1948. Its original goal was to apply the methods of Physics and Chemistry to basic medical research, and it included departments of Chemistry, Physiology, and Biophysics. In the 1960s, new developments in biology were reflected with the establishment of the Department of Molecular Biology. Toward the end of the 1980s and during the 1990s, investigations began into the specific functions of muscle and nerve cells. New departments were established in Cell Physiology (1989-2008), Molecular Cell Research (1992-1999), Molecular Neurobiology (1995), Biomedical Optics (1999) and Biomolecular Mechanisms (2002). The independent junior research groups for Ion Channel Structure (1997-2003) and Developmental Genetics of the Nervous System (1999-2005) were also founded.