Annual EBM Update Meeting held at MPZPM

Today, the MPZPM hosted its first research highlight with the EBM Update Meeting 2025. Scientists from various disciplines discussed the latest research in the field of brain mechanics and engaged in a lively scientific exchange to foster a deeper understanding.

The central nervous system (CNS) is our most complex organ system. Despite tremendous progress in our understanding of the biochemical, electrical, and genetic regulation of CNS functioning and malfunctioning, many fundamental processes and diseases are still not fully understood. With the interdisciplinary expertise of engineers, physicists, biologists, medical researchers and medical specialists in Erlangen and Berlin, scientists from the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 1540 ‘Exploring Brain Mechanics’ (EBM) are focusing their research projects on the importance of mechanical properties of tissues to regulating CNS cell functions. 

The consortium of international researchers from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Universitätsklinikum Erlangen (UKER), Charité Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) has the common goal of deepening our understanding of the functions of the CNS. Its long-term vision is to create the basis for future improvements in the diagnosis and treatment of neurological diseases.

The Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin (MPZPM) - a joint research center of the MPL, FAU and UKER - is the venue for the annual EBM Update Meeting.

‘Our Collaborative Research Centre is exceptional: it brings together many scientists from a wide variety of fields who enthusiastically bundle their knowledge and methods to jointly answer important open questions in the neurosciences. The unique aspect is our focus on brain mechanics, a very promising approach that has been neglected for far too long,’ says Prof Franze, Taskforce EBM, Director of the Institute of Medical Physics and Microtissue Engineering and Board Member of the MPZPM.

Prof Paul Steinmann, spokesperson for the CRC 1540 EBM and Chair of Mechanical Engineering, says: ‘This event is a highlight for the researchers. It offers them a valuable platform to present progress in the three core research areas - brain mechanics, spinal cord mechanics and cell mechanics - as well as in the cross-sectional projects and, conversely, to obtain concise information’.

 

Several research groups at the MPZPM are involved in the SFB 1540 EBM. Among them is Dr Daniel Wehner, research group leader ‘Neuroregeneration’. Together with his team, he is investigating the importance of the mechanical properties of tissue for the successful regeneration of the spinal cord in zebrafish (B05: In vivo mechanical manipulation of spinal cord regeneration). Dr Stephanie Möllmert from the ‘Cell Physics’ department of MPL director Prof. Jochen Guck uses Brillouin microscopy to map the mechanical properties of the growth-promoting spinal cord lesion site in zebrafish non-invasively in vivo and thus identify the relevant components (B03: The determinants of spinal cord mechanics in homeostasis). In Prof Vasily Zaburdaev (Biology) and Prof Kristian Franze (Medicine), two further scientific members of the MPZPM are involved in projects in the CRC.


Photos: Susanne Viezens

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