Multiresponsive Behavior of Biomembranes and Giant Vesicles

Reinhard Lipowsky studied physics at the University of Heidelberg and did his doctoral studies at the University of Munich. He defended his doctoral thesis in 1982 with summa cum laude, spent two years as a research associate at Cornell University, USA, and was an Associate Professor at the University of Munich until he became a Full Professor at the University of Cologne and a Department Head at the Institute of Solid State Research, Research Center Jülich. In 1993, he accepted an offer from the Max Planck Society and became one of the founding directors for the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Potsdam. Since 1993, Reinhard Lipowsky is responsible for the department of Theory and Biosystems at the Max Planck Institute. The department currently consists of ten research groups with about 60 students and researchers. The research is based on a combination of analytical theory, computer simulations, and experimental methods. The main objective of these research activities is to understand the hidden dimensions of self-organization and pattern formation in biomimetic and biological systems. The molecular building blocks of these systems join “by themselves and form a variety of supermolecular assemblies, which then interact to produce even larger structures and networks. Reinhard Lipowsky is responsible for the International Max Planck Research School on "Multiscale Biosystems", is a scientific member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences (BBAW), and has a honorary professorship at the University of Potsdam and at the Humboldt University Berlin.