New Curators for Max Planck Institute and Kerckhoff Foundation

The joint boards of trustees of the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research and the W.G. Kerckhoff Foundation will be strengthened: Dr. Claudia Walther, Managing Director of the Boehringer Ingelheim Fund, and Sonja Kastilan, Head of the Science Department of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, two experts in the field of science and research, accepted the appointment by the President of the Max Planck Society. Friedrich Bohl, former Chairman of the Board of Trustees and former Minister of the Chancellor’s Office, welcomed the two curators for the first time at the annual meeting of the Board of Directors.

The Managing Director of the Institute, Prof. Dr. Thomas Braun, also had encouraging news to report: Together with the universities in Gießen and Frankfurt, the Institute was successful in the last round of the Excellence Initiative of the German federal and state governments. In the end, the application for a cluster of excellence “Cardiopulmonary Institute” was the only successful Hessian application. “In a highly competitive environment, we were able to convince with our scientific concept,” said Braun. In the coming years, the partner institutions will now use the latest methods to research various diseases of the cardiovascular system and the lungs and identify new therapeutic approaches. “Our vision is that precision biology is the driver of precision medicine,” Braun explained.

In his annual report, Volker Remmele, Chairman of the Board of the Kerckhoff Foundation, particularly emphasized the successful completion of the renovation of the approximately 90-year-old institute building in Parkstrasse. During the work, which took around ten years, not only had laboratories been renovated, but also a large part of the historical building fabric had been secured. “I am particularly pleased that the historic lecture hall now radiates its original character again in large parts,” said Remmele. The lecture hall would now provide the perfect setting for a ceremony to mark the upcoming 90th anniversary of the Kerckhoff Foundation.

Prof. Dr. Nina Wettschureck offered an insight into the scientific work of the institute. She reported on the latest research approaches of her research group. Using the most modern methods, she uses individual cells to obtain information about the role of certain signal molecules in the development of cardiovascular diseases. The Max Planck researcher hopes to use this knowledge to create new therapeutic approaches.

Press contact: Dr. Matthias Heil