Simulation of Life-Like Processes
What exactly is life, from a physical-chemical perspective? Can life-like processes, functions and objects be simulated and recreated in the lab? These are the questions being explored by the educational programme of the Max Planck School Matter to Life, a new cross-institutional and supra-regional graduate training institution in which Heidelberg University plays a significant part. The programme is addressed to internationally outstanding graduates with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, physics, biology, biochemistry, biotechnology or material sciences. These candidates will be able to earn a master’s degree and a doctorate within five years.
The idea at the core of the three Max Planck Schools – besides Matter to Life, there are also the Max Planck School of Cognition and the Max Planck School of Photonics – is to create a network for excellent minds in each of these fields of research in Germany. This new form of graduate education brings together outstanding researchers from universities, Max Planck, Fraunhofer and Leibniz Institutes and Helmholtz Centres. It allows top scientists in an interdisciplinary subject area to work with the most talented graduates worldwide in pioneering research projects, with the aim of training young scientific talent in an active research environment and under optimal conditions. Launched in September 2019, the three schools are funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) during a five-year pilot phase with a total of nine million euros per year.
The Max Planck School Matter to Life is the research and education network of the universities of Heidelberg and Göttingen, TU Munich and the Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials in Aachen, as well as several Max Planck Institutes, among them the MPI for Medical Research in Heidelberg. The latter has agreed to share the role of speaker for Matter to Life with Heidelberg University. The educational programme is heavily research-oriented and deals with interdisciplinary issues in the natural sciences. Students will gain in-depth knowledge of the chemical-physical building blocks of life and develop a sound understanding of applications, links, materials and methods in chemical-biological contexts. In addition, they will benefit from offers such as summer schools and a personal mentoring programme. Students can engage in independent research even while studying for their master’s degree. Once they have successfully completed their master’s thesis, they will be able to continue their lab work during their doctoral training. The next application round for the programme begins in the autumn of 2020.
