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History
The Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry (Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer Institute) was created in 1971 through the merger of two Max Planck Institutes in Göttingen, the Institute for Physical Chemistry and the Institute for Spectroscopy. It has since undergone a continuous evolution manifested by an expanding range of core subjects and work areas.
Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer (1899-1957), student of Walter Nernst and later coworker of Fritz Haber at the former Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institute for Physical Chemistry in Berlin-Dahlem, became the founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Physical Chemistry in 1949. He was one of the first who applied physical-chemical methods in biological research and thus made different disciplines of natural sciences to interact in research. To honor him and this approach the Institute is named after him.
The history of the Institute lists numerous prizes to honor outstanding scientific success. Two scientists of the Institute, Erwin Neher and Bert Sakmann, shared the "Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine" in 1991, awarded for pioneering single channel recording techniques and applications. Another director of the MPIbpc, Manfred Eigen, received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1967 for his unique contributions to the field of rapid reaction kinetics. His vision of an interdisciplinary approach to biological research was decisive and the creative impulse for the development of the Institute. Numerous science prizes have been awarded to other directors, such as the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz prize (six times) and the Deutsche Zukunftspreis by the Federal President (Peter Gruss and Herbert Jäckle, 1999; Stefan Hell, 2006).
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© 2012, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen |
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