Lichtenberg-Professuren / Lichtenberg Professorships

Bewilligungen / Grants 2006

 

Animal navigation from behaviour and cognition to molecular mechanisms

Bewilligung: 22.12.2006 Laufzeit: 5 Jahre

The professorship is focused on understanding the behavioural, molecular, physiological and cognitive mechanisms underlying migration and long-distance navigation. What mechanisms enable birds with a brain weighing less than a gram to circumnavigate the globe with a precision unobtainable by human navigators before the emergence of GPS satellites? How do young bires find the species specific wintering quarter on their own, even though they have never been there before? How does experience influence their spatiotemporal orientation strategies? What is the physiological basis for sensing the relevant cues? How do animals sense the Earth's magnetic field? How is navigational information processed in the brain? What genes are involved? To successfully answer these questions, a wide range of multidisciplinary approaches are needed. Therefore, neurobiology, neuroanatomy, molecular biology, mathematical modelling and simulations, physics and newly developed laboratory equipment in combination with behavioural experiments and analyses of field data will be used to achive a better understanding of mechanism enabling animals to navigate over thousands of kilometres.

Universität Oldenburg
Institut für Biologie und Umweltwissenschaften
Professor Dr. Henrik Mouritsen
Ammerländer Heerstraße 114-118
26129 Oldenburg
Tel.: 0441 798 3081
Fax: 0441 798 3620

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Glass fibre quantum optics

Bewilligung: 22.12.2006 Laufzeit: 5 Jahre

The professorship aims at combining atomic and molecular quantum optics with the field of light confinement and control in tapered optical fibres. This goal is motivated by the perspective of building and operating integrated glass fibre quantum optical devices which rely on the controlled interaction between light and matter close to or on the surface of specially designed optical fibres. Due to the quantum nature of this interaction, these devices will offer enhanced and even entirely new functionalities as compared to classical systems.

The research programm is grouped around four themes:
- The fabrication of ultra-thin tapered optical fibres with diameters ranging from 10 micrometers down to 100 nanometers
- The realization of optical microresonators based on such fibres
- The guiding and trapping of cold atoms using the evanescent fields around subwave-length-diameter tapered optical fibres
- The detection and spectroscopic examination of single atoms and molecules on or close to the surface of ultra-thin tapered optical fibres.

Universität Mainz
FB 8 - Physik, Mathematik und Informatik
Institut für Physik
Quanten-, Atom- und Neutronenphysik
Professor Dr. Arno Rauschenbeutel
Postfach
55099 Mainz
Tel.: 06131 39 20203
Fax: 06131 39 25179

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Lichtenberg-Professur für Internationales Strafrecht und Strafrechtsvergleichung 

Bewilligung: 22.12.2006 Laufzeit: 5 Jahre

Das Vorhaben wurde am 25.02.2011 von Berlin nach Hamburg umgesetzt.

Strafrecht ist keine nationale Angelegenheit mehr. Die Entwicklungen, die sich unter den Schlagworten "Internationalisierung" und "Europäisierung" zusammenfassen lassen, bewirken nachhaltige Veränderungen für das Strafrecht - und schaffen neue Aufgaben für die Strafrechtswissenschaft. Mit der zwischen den juristischen Disziplinen Strafrecht, Völkerrecht und Europarecht angesiedelten Lichtenberg-Professur werden diese Entwicklungen und ihre Wirkungen auf das Strafrecht - erstmals an einer deutschen Universität - zum ausschließlichen Gegenstand der Lehr- und Forschungstätigkeit einer Professur. Die Forschungsschwerpunkte betreffen Fragen der Durchsetzung universeller Strafrechtsnormen durch internationale Strafgerichte, die Kristallisation eines "Strafrechts im europäischen Rechtsraum", Probleme der Verwirklichung des staatlichen  Strafanspruchs im transnationalen Kontext sowie methodische Grundfragen der Strafrechtsvergleichung.

Universität Hamburg
Fakultät für Rechtswissenschaft
Lehrstuhl für Strafrecht, insbesondere
Internationales Strafrecht
Prof. Dr. Florian Jeßberger
Rothenbaumchaussee 33
20148 Hamburg
Tel.: 040 42838 4586

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Colloid chemistry of inorganic and organic nanoparticles

Bewilligung: 22.11.2006 Laufzeit: 5 Jahre

Das Vorhaben wurde am 12.03.2009 von Bayreuth nach Aachen umgesetzt.

The central aim of the professorship is the development of nanoporous
nanocapsules with controlled pore size and pore density using a toolbox based on organic and inorganic nanoparticle building blocks.The size control of the pores on the nanometer scale is still a challenging problem. As sacrificial templates for the design of novel nanocapsules the spherical protein cage of the cow pea mosaic virus (CPMV) and gold nanoparticles are used. Another goal is the self-assembly of polymer-modified CPMV and other bionanoparticles at emulsion droplet interfaces to build novel microcapsules and furthermore allow in-situ encapsulation of target molecules in solution. The biological and chemical addressability will be maintained throughout the capsule built-up. The mechanical properties as well as the porosity of the capsules will be controlled via polymer-modification of the bionanoparticle building block. Transferring the assembly process onto a solid substrate allows the fabrication of a nanoporous membrane, where the bionanoparticle building blocks serve as sacrificial template for the pores. Those can be further functionalized. Along these lines, novel responsive capsules for "targeted drug  delivery"- applications will be realized.

Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen
Lehrstuhl für Makromolekulare Materialien und
Oberflächen (Physikalische Chemie)
Professor Dr. Alexander Böker
Pauwelsstr. 9
52056 Aachen
Tel.: 0241 80 23304
Fax: 0241 80 23301

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Immunological memory against viruses

Bewilligung: 30.10.2006 Laufzeit: 5 Jahre

Immunological memory, defined as faster and more vigorous responses of an antigen-primed host, may protect from diseases of which the host has recovered before. However, it also bears the risk to create immunopathology and autoimmunity. It is maintained by long-lived memory B and T cells that differentiate from naïve precursor cells upon antigen exposure. Aim of the professorship is a molecular understanding of the cellular differentiation pathways and inductive signals for memory cell generation, i.e., the relationship between the generation of effector cells and memory cells and whether and how they are converted into each other. The role of antigen and the interactions of B, CD4, and CD8 T cells in generating and maintaining this memory will be studied. Moreover, the molecular factors that regulate the longevity of memory cells and that control the stability or flexibility of their effector mechanisms will be analyzed. Murine virus-specific effector and memory cells will be purified, characterized at the molecular level, and adoptively transferred into naïve recipient mice to study the generation and maintenance of long-lived memory cells. The functional capacity of memory cells - immunity or immunopathology and autoimmunity - will be determined in vivo by infecting the recipients with cognate virus.

Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin
Medizinische Klinik
Schwerpunkt Rheumatologie und Klinische Immunologie
Professor Dr. Max Löhning
Charitéplatz 1
10117 Berlin
Tel.: 030 28460 760
Fax: 030 28460 603

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Astroparticle physics

Bewilligung: 06.04.2006 Laufzeit: 5 Jahre

Das Vorhaben wurde am 26.07.2007 von Aachen nach Zürich umgesetzt.

The goal is to build a large liquid xenon detector to search for dark matter particles. The nature of dark matter in the universe and in particular in the halo of our own Galaxy, remains one of the great unresolved problems in science. The most promising candidates are so-called weakly interactive massive particles (WIMPs), which could have been produced in the early universe, moments after the Big Bang, and are also predicted in theories going beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. One method to detect WIMPs is to exploit their elastic scattering with nuclei in ultra-sensitive terrestrial detectors with liquid xenon as a dark matter detector. The ultimate goal is to build a 1 tonne liquid xenon detector within the international XENON collaboration and to operate it at an underground site such as the Gran Sasso Underground Laboratory in Italy. This goal will be realized in three stages: a 10 kg liquid xenon prototype, followed by a first 100 kg liquid xenon module and a modular (10x100 kg modules) one tonne experiment. 

Universität Zürich
Physik-Institut
Prof. Dr. Laura Baudis
Winterthurerstraße 190
CH-8057 Zürich
SCHWEIZ

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Switching RNA interference

Bewilligung: 20.01.2006 Laufzeit: 5 Jahre

RNA interference (RNAi) describes the specific down-regulation of gene expression induced by homologous double-stranded RNAs, exploiting a naturally occurring pathway. To date, RNA interference can not be controlled once the RNAi triggers are delivered into cells. Moreover, the technique allows only for switching off the expression of a targeted gene. The possibility to switch on and off expression at particular times would widely broaden the scope of this method. In addition, it would be of great impact to turn on RNA interference when certain changes take place inside cells. Nuclid acids capable of triggering RNA interference will be synthesized using solid-phase phosphoramidite chemistry, augmented with sequences and modifications rendering the small interfering RNA (siRNA) accessible to regulation. Using this strategy, the possibility to switch on and off RNAi by other nucleic acids, proteins, and small, drug-like molecules will be explored. In addition to the modulation of RNA interference by controlling siRNA activity, regulation could be achieved by localizing the effects. A so-far unsolved issue of future therapeutic applications of siRNAs represents the targeted delivery to the tissue of interest. Sequences with binding affinity towards cellular structures such as tumor marker proteins will be fused to siRNAs.

Universität Konstanz
Fachbereich Chemie
Lichtenberg-Professur "Chemie biologisch funktionaler Materialien"
Professor Dr. Jörg Steffen Hartig
78457 Konstanz
Tel.: +49 7531 884575
Homepage: http://www.uni-konstanz.de/FuF/chemie/jhartig/

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The fundamental structure of string theory and its relation to gauge field theories

Bewilligung: 11.01.2006 Laufzeit: 5 Jahre

String theory is the most promising candidate for a unification of
gravity with the other three fundamental forces of nature in a quantum mechanically consistent framework. It predicts the existence of a symmetry between bosonic and fermionic particles which would be of great relevance in particle physics and will be searched for in the next generation of accelerators. Moreover, strings predict the existence of six additional compact dimensions in our universe. One focus of the research will be to deepen the understanding of the fundamental structure of string theory through its relation to supermembranes and matrix theories. The non-perturbative structure of string theory has only recently been better understood, through a unification of all five ten-dimensional string theories into a more complete underlying framework, known as M-theory. Its fundamental degrees of freedom could be provided by membranes. The second focus is directed toward the study of dualities of strings and gauge theories.
Gauge theories are the essential building blocks of the Standard Model of Elementary Particle Physics, but their strong coupling dynamics to date is not accessible by analytic means. In recent years strings have emerged as a tool to study strongly coupled gauge theories through a dual string formulation.

Humboldt-Universität Berlin
Institut für Physik
Professor Dr. Jan Plefka
Tel. +49 30 2093 7622
Newtonstr. 15
12489 Berlin
Homepage: http://qft.physik.hu-berlin.de/

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Schriftgröße