Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces

The 'Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces' is a research institute for colloids, located in Golm (Potsdam), Germany. It was founded in 1990 as a successor of the Institute for Physical Chemistry and for Organic Chemistry in Berlin-Adlershof and of for Polymer Chemistry in Teltow. It moved into the new buildings in Golm 1999. It is one of 80 institutes in the Max Planck Society (Max Planck Gesellschaft).

Tiny apatite crystals in bones, vesicles formed out of membranes, pores in membranes for fuel cells and microcapsules as vehicles for medical drugs – all these are structures that are larger than an atom, yet too small to be seen with the naked eye. These are the kinds of nanostructures and microstructures that scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces examine and create. The structures are often colloids – tiny particles in a different medium – or interfaces between two materials. Many of the structures can be found in nature. The scientists at the Potsdam-based Institute endeavour to understand how they are composed and how they work in order to imitate their behaviour in new materials or in vaccines, for example. Understanding the function of these structures can also help to identify the causes of certain diseases that occur when the folding of membranes or the transport of materials in cells fails to work properly.

Departments/Directors

Colloid Chemistry/Markus Antonietti The “Colloid Chemistry” department deals with the synthesis of various colloidal structures in the nanometre range. This includes inorganic and metallic nanoparticles, polymers and peptide structural units, their micelles and organised phases, as well as emulsions and foams. Colloid chemistry is able to create materials with a structural hierarchy through appropriate functionalised colloids. This creates new characteristics through the “teamwork” of the functional groups. With appropriate architecture, these colloids can fulfil very specialised tasks. Single molecular systems cannot do this, due to their lack of complexity. An example for this is skin: There is no synthetic material, which is as soft and simultaneously so tear-resistant and yet is mainly comprised of water. The secret of this also lies in the interaction between three components (collagen, hyaluronic acid, proteoglycan). This unusual combination of characteristics is only made possible by forming a superstructure “in a team“.

Biomaterials/Peter Fratzl The Department of Biomaterials focuses on interdisciplinary research in the field of biological and biomimetic materials. The emphasis is on understanding how the mechanical or other physical properties are governed by structure and composition and how they adopt to environmental conditions. Furthermore, research on natural materials (such as bone or wood) has potential applications in many fields. First, design concepts for new materials may be improved by learning from Nature. Second, the understanding of basic mechanisms by which the structure of bone or connective tissue is optimised opens the way for studying diseases and, thus, for contributing to diagnosis and development of treatment strategies. A third option is to use structures grown by Nature and transform them by physical or chemical treatment into technically relevant materials (biotemplating). Given the complexity of natural materials, new approaches for structural characterisation are needed. Some of these are further developed in the Department, in particular for studying hierarchical structures.

Theory and Bio-Systems/Reinhard Lipowsky The Department of "Theory and Bio-Systems" investigates the structure and dynamics of molecules, colloids and nanoparticles in biological and biomimetic systems. The molecular building blocks of these systems assemble "by themselves" and form a variety of supramolecular nanostructures, which then interact to produce even larger structures and networks. These complex processes represent hidden dimensions of selforganization since they are difficult to observe on the relevant length and time scales. Current research focuses on molecular recognition, energy conversion and transport by molecular motors, dynamics of transcription and translation, as well as selforganization of filaments and membranes.

Interfaces/Helmuth Möhwald Prime motivation is to understand molecular interfaces and to relate this to colloidal systems which are by nature determined by the large surface/volume ratio. Consequently the strength of the department in characterizing planar or quasi-planar interfaces has been increased and in addition it has been tried successfully to transfer this knowledge to curved interfaces. From this we have again learned about planar interfaces since surfaces could be studied by techniques requiring large surface area (NMR, DSC).

Biomolecular Systems/Peter H. Seeberger The researchers in the “Biomolecular Systems” department are using new methods for synthesising sugar chains. Until recently most of the known naturally occurring sugars were those that supply energy to organisms such as sucrose (household sugar) and starch (in plants). However, the complex sugar molecules, which belong to the carbohydrate, are also involved in many biological processes. They cover all cells in the human body and play a crucial part in molecular identification of cell surfaces for example in infections, immune reactions and cancer metastases. Complex sugars are omnipresent as cell coatings in nature and can therefore also be used for vaccine development, e.g. against malaria. Carbohydrates are thus of significant interest for medicine; the major significance of sugar residues on the surfaces of cells for biology and medicine has only been recognised during the past approximately 20 years.

Until recently a chemical synthesis method to create biologically relevant carbohydrates with a known structure in large quantities and for biological, pharmaceutical and medical research was lacking. Now, these gaps can be closed with the development of the first automated synthesis apparatus that can link sugar molecules with other sugars or also molecules.

External links

• Institute Homepage