News & Events at Matter to Life

"Physicists are on the hunt for a ‘theory of life’ that explains why life can exist.” Check out this editorial that discusses “whether writing down a mathematical theory of life is an achievable goal and, if so, what questions such a theory should answer.”  One of our Max Planck School Matter to Life Fellows, Ramin Golestanian, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen, Germany, headed the discussion at the APS Physics of Living Matter Conference last year. In his quest for a unifying theory of life, he says, “I have absolutely no doubt that good things will come out of this sort of knowledge.”  Read the full article on the APS Physics website: 
https://physics.aps.org/articles/v12/2 Unattributed quoted text belongs to the editorial author, Katherine Wright, a Senior Editor of Physics. more

“Built from the bottom up, synthetic cells and other creations are starting to come together and could soon test the boundaries of life.” - Kendall Powell Read this exiting Nature News Feature on building synthetic cells, a major focus of the Max Planck School Matter to Life. This article highlights the work of three of our Max Planck School Matter to Life Fellows: Petra Schwille, a director at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany; Joachim Spatz, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, Germany; and Tobias Erb, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg, Germany.

Read the full article on the Nature website: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07289-x more

Learn more about the Max Planck Schools at the annual Max Planck Days!