Günther Beckstein and Forchheim District Administrator Hermann Ulm visit the Max Planck Institute.

Erlangen, July 08, 2019. The Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light was founded during the office of retired Prime Minister Günther Beckstein and it is already celebrating its tenth birthday this year. The time is long overdue to get an idea of the scientific work on site: Günther Beckstein visited the laboratories together with Hermann Ulm, District Administrator of Forchheim, and Siegfried Balleis, former Mayor of Erlangen, and had a lively exchange with scientists. The tour through the building took the visitors to what is probably the coldest place in the metropolitan region. The temperature of the cryostat is almost at absolute zero.

After the current research was evaluated, the future was also discussed: The planned Max Planck Center for Physics and Medicine is a joint project of the Max Planck Institute, the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg and the University Hospital Erlangen. The building is to be completed by 2023 - the scientists have already started their research. Two Max Planck directors, Jochen Guck and Vahid Sandoghdar, will present their research to visitors in a lecture. Using physical measuring methods, they investigate cells in order to draw conclusions about possible diseases, for example. They work with high-resolution microscopes and lab-on-a-chip methods specially developed for their research. The results will help improve medical diagnostics.