Board of Trustees
The Board of Trustees at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research forms an important interface supporting the exchange between scientists and the general public. The trustees are important members of the German public life, representing the media, economy, politics and science. Their principal task is to advise the institute on issues of science-policy, finance and organization, and to foster good relations to other parts of society.
The current members (2010-2015) of the board are:
- Dr. Rolf Bernhardt (Hessian Ministry of Science and Arts, Wiesbaden)
- Dr. Rolf E. Breuer (Deutsche Bank, Frankfurt am Main)
- Dr. Michael Endres (Chairman of the Boards of the Hertie Foundation, Frankfurt am Main)
- Dr. Traudl Herrhausen (Former member of the Hessian State Parliament, Frankfurt am Main)
- Dr. Jochen Hückmann (CEO of the Merz Pharma, Frankfurt am Main)
- Prof. Dr. Klaus Cichutek (President of the Paul Ehrlich Institute, Langen)
- Prof. Dr. Werner Müller-Esterl (President of the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main)
- Joachim Müller-Jung (Head of the Department for Nature and Science at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Frankfurt am Main)
- Prof. Dr. Josef M. Pfeilschifter (Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main)
- Dr. h.c. Petra Roth (Mayor of the City of Frankfurt am Main)
- Prof. Dr. Thomas Schreckenbach (Former member of the Executive Board of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt)
- Prof. Dr. Felix Semmelroth (Head of the Department of Culture and Science of the City of Frankfurt am Main)
Latest News
| 09.05.2012 |
Think Global, Act local: new roles for protein synthesis at synapsesHow do we build a memory in the brain? It is well known that for animals (and humans) new proteins are needed to establish long-term memories. During learning information is stored at the synapses, the junctions connecting nerve cells. Synapses also require new proteins in order to show changes in their strength (synaptic plasticity). Historically, scientists have focused on the cell body as the place where the required proteins are synthesized. However, in recent years there has been increasing focus on the dendrites and axons (the compartments that meet to form synapses) as a potential site for protein synthesis. Protein synthesis machines have been observed there as well as a limited number of their templates, the messenger RNA molecules. The limited number of mRNAs observed in dendrites and axons placed constraints on the constellation of proteins that could be synthesized to help synapses work and change. Researchers from Erin Schuman's lab at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Brain Research used new-generation sequencing to directly identify a very large number (over 2500) of new mRNA molecules that are present at the axons and dendrites. Using high-resolution imaging techniques they were able to both quantify and visualize individual mRNA molecules. They published their findings in the latest issue of Neuron. |
|---|---|
| 27.01.2012 |
Erin Schuman receives an ERC Advanced Grant to study the fundamentals of synaptic plasticityProf. Erin Schuman, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research is one of the seven Max Planck Directors who receives this prestigious grant. These grants, for exceptional research leaders, are a special program of the ERC designed to fund ambitious, pioneering and unconventional science. In the latest round (2011) the European Commission received 2009 applications but made only 266 awards, adding up to 590 million Euro. |
| 27.01.2012 |
New mechanistic insights into adaptive learningThe brain is a fantastically complex and mysterious device, too large and with too many internal connections to be entirely programmable genetically. Its internal connectivity must therefore self-organize, based on the one hand on genetically regulated biases and on experience and learning on the other. The brain can change its internal connectivity based, for example, on correlations between the inputs it receives and the consequences of actions associated with those inputs, in a phenomenon we generally call associative learning. There are, in our daily life, numerous examples of this type of learning; its consequence is that a smell or a tune on the radio can trigger memories from the past, which lay dormant for some time. “Such a recall — to a smell, sound, taste, or any other sensory stimulus — is evidence of associative learning, and what interested us here was to understand the tricks used by the brain to make these associations specific”, says Gilles Laurent, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research. |
| 18.01.2012 |
Visit Korean delegationOn January 12, 2012 a delegation of the Republic of Korea visited the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research. |
| 06.12.2011 |
Scientists at the MPI for Brain Research visualize new protein synthesis in zebrafishThe newly synthesized proteins can be labeled in intact organisms via metabolic incorporation of non-canonical amino acids. |
