geschichte_header.jpg

History of the Institute

The MPI for Multidisciplinary Sciences was founded on January 1, 2022 merging two existing Göttingen institutes, the MPI for Biophysical Chemistry and the MPI for Experimental Medicine. With this fusion, the institute brings together basic research in the natural sciences and medicine. The two locations of the institutes remain as City Campus and Fassberg Campus.

On the history of the MPI for Biophysical Chemistry

For the MPI for Biophysical Chemistry, the merger marks the repetition of a central event in its almost 50-year history. This goes back to the former Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry in Berlin, which Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer rebuilt in 1949 as the MPI for Physical Chemistry in Göttingen. The physical chemist Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer pursued a strongly interdisciplinary approach at an early stage and also applied physical-chemical methods to biological problems. Initiated by Nobel laureate Manfred Eigen, today's MPI for Biophysical Chemistry was founded in 1971 by merging the MPI for Physical Chemistry with the MPI for Spectroscopy, which was also located in Göttingen at the time. Manfred Eigen's vision was to investigate complex life processes with biological, chemical and physical methods at the newly founded institute.

On the History of the MPI for Experimental Medicine

The MPI of Experimental Medicine was founded in 1947 as Medizinische Forschungsanstalt of the still existing Kaiser Wilhelm Society and was integrated into the newly founded MPS in 1948. Since 1965, it has been located under its current name in Hermann-Rein-Straße, opposite the University Medical Center Göttingen. Since the late 1990s, the institute’s research focuses on neuroscience, with a particular emphasis on both basic molecular and cellular processes in the nervous system and related pathological disorders.

Go to Editor View