CTET CI Distinguished Professor Dietmar W. Hutmacher has been named as co-director of the newly formed Max Planck Queensland Center for the Materials Science of Extracellular Matrices (MPQC).
Hosted by Germany’s Max Planck Society and QUT, the Max Planck Queensland Center for the Materials Science of Extracellular Matrices will explore extracellular matrices and their importance for medicine, ecology, and technology.
Extracellular matrices (ECM) are found in almost all living things and carry out various functions that could also become medically, ecologically, and technically relevant. However, relatively little research has been done on them.
The MPQC will be led by co-directors Distinguished Professor Dietmar W. Hutmacher (QUT) and Professor Peter Fratzl (Max-Planck Institute).
“The basic idea of the Max Planck Queensland Center is to study biological materials that are inanimate but which can still sense and adapt to their environment,” Professor Fratzl said.
“With this, we want to put a new area on the research map and not simply focus on biomedical applications”.
A more precise knowledge of how the composition and structure of ECM influences their functions is relevant not only for biomedical applications and a better understanding of biological systems but also for technical applications – for example in robotics or architecture.