DFG OKs 11 Research Centers

The German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, or DFG) will establish 11 new collaborative research centers on July 1 that will receive a total of €75.5 million (approximately $102 million) in funding over the next four years for work in areas including micro- and nanomedicine and nanoscale photonic imaging, DFG announced.

Four of the new centers (sonderforschungsbereiche, or SFBs) will be transregional, which are located at multiple sites.

SFB 755, Nanoscale Photonic Imaging, will be located at Georg-August University of Göttingen and plans to investigate complex systems such as macromolecular fluids and living cells by developing innovative optical techniques.

Switchable molecules are able to change their properties reversibly in response to external stimulation -- such as by light or magnetic field -- a peculiarity that SFB 677, Switch Functions, will investigate. One of its objectives will be to develop autonomous molecular switches for medical or technological applications. The SFB will be located at Christian Albrechts University in Kiel.

Other SFBs will explore environment-induced aging processes, transplantation medicine, using quantum mechanics to develop a new class of structural materials, exploring the dynamic parameters of molecules and biomolecules in chemical reactions, and developing molecular knowledge of the cell envelope of bacteria.

At Transregional Collaborative Research Centre 37, Micro- and Nanosystems in Medicine -- Reconstruction of Biologic Functions, researchers from the fields of medicine, material science and the natural sciences will investigate the development of new technologies and methods of treatment in regenerative medicine using nano- and laser technology. The center will be based in Hannover, Aachen and Rostock and will be hosted by Hannover Medical School.

At Condensed Matter Systems with Variable Many-Body Interactions, Transregional Collaborative Research Centre 49, hosted by Joann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, scientists and researchers in the fields of quantum optics, solid-state physics and chemistry from Frankfurt, Kaiserslautern and Mainz will be investigating the collective behavior of interacting many-body systems.

The two other transregional centers will address ecosystem development and combining various methodological approaches, such as algebraic and complex geometry and arithmetic geometry.

The DFG also approved the continuation of 19 Collaborative Research Centres for another funding period, bringing the total number of centers financed by the DFG to 270 as of July 1. The total funding for 2007 will amount to approximately €388 million ($524 million).

DFG also made changes to the program to simplify the funding of independent junior research groups.

For more information, visit: www.dfg.de/sfb/en