Matthias Willems new member of the Board of Trustees of the Max Planck Institute and Kerckhoff Foundation

Matthias Willems, President of the Technische Hochschule Mittelhessen (THM), is a new member of the joint Board of Trustees of the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research (MPI) and the William G. Kerckhoff Foundation in Bad Nauheim. The Chairman of the Board of Trustees, the former Minister of the Chancellor’s Office Friedrich Bohl, recently welcomed the newly appointed trustee at the annual meeting of the board.
Willems expressed his pleasure to be able to participate in the future Board of Trustees of the renowned institute. The THM is the third largest university in Germany and stands out for its research strength. There is a close connection with the neighboring universities within the framework of the Central Hesse Research Campus.
The THM also cooperates with the MPI. Especially in the field of bioinformatics, there has been an intensive cooperation between the two institutions for years.

In his annual report, Volker Remmele, Chairman of the Board of the Kerckhoff Foundation, spoke, among other things, about the renovation of the historic institute building in Parkstrasse, which was completed after ten years. The building, which is still owned by the Foundation, was given to the Max Planck Society (MPG) decades ago for the operation of the Institute. Over a period of more than eight years, the Max Planck Society thoroughly renovated and modernized the 90-year-old building. The result is impressive, said Remmele. In addition to the Hall of Honor and the library, the lecture hall of the Institute was also reconstructed in large parts true to the original. At the same time, the technical equipment will meet the requirements of a modern scientific institution.

Thomas Braun, Managing Director of the Max Planck Institute, reported on the scientific development of the institute. In addition to a large number of top-class publications in renowned scientific journals, the particular highlight of the year was the successful application for the current Excellence Initiative of the German Federal Government. “Our application, which was submitted by the MPI together with the universities in Gießen and Frankfurt, was the only application ever successful in Hesse,” said Braun. From next year on, research will be conducted in the Cluster of Excellence named “Cardiopulmonary Institute” to develop personalized precision medicine in the field of cardiovascular diseases. The institute will receive annual funding in the millions over the next seven years, Braun said. Among other things, the funds will be used to establish two additional research groups at the MPI.