Over a Million Euros of Funding for Interdisciplinary Research

The "Cells in Motion" (CiM) Cluster of Excellence at Münster University is providing 1.1 million euros of funding for no fewer than twelve new so-called flexible funds projects. These are research projects which established scientists apply for and then jointly implement. What is special about the projects is that the project partners in each case devote themselves to research questions across faculty boundaries, uniting laboratories and clinics from the Departments of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics and Medicine. "The range of topics and the creative approaches to the projects are unique in this form," says immuno-biologist Prof. Klaus Ley from the La Jolla Institute of Allergology and Immunology in San Diego, USA, who is one of the external advisors to the Cluster of Excellence. Together with other top international researchers from the fields of natural sciences and medicine, he made a thorough examination of the new project ideas. So far the CiM, with its interdisciplinary orientation, has provided funding for a total of 39 flexible funds projects. Three examples of projects: Of sperm, nano-capsules and high-performance scanners Sperm in a flow channel In their flexible funds project, biochemist Prof. Timo Strünker and physicist Prof. Carsten Fallnich want to research into a fundamental principle of fertilization.