Technology transfer award for light microscopes with molecular resolution
abberior Instruments markets the world's only light microscopes with molecular high resolution. The Göttingen-based company emerged in 2012 from the NanoBiophotonics department of Stefan Hell at the MPI for Biophysical Chemistry. Max-Planck-Innovation GmbH, as the link between science and business, accompanied the founding of the company and licensed the findings in the field of fluorescence microscopy to the then start-up. abberior Instruments is now represented with 85 employees in Europe, North America and China.
The basis for the spin-off of abberior Instruments GmbH was the groundbreaking discovery at the Göttingen MPI for Biophysical Chemistry that the Abbe diffraction limit can be overcome with suitable physical effects and the resolution of conventional light microscopes can be increased by up to ten times - and in principle even more. In the process, fluorescent molecules that are very close to each other are sequentially kept dark so that they do not light up all at once, but one after the other. They can thus be differentiated in the light microscope. Hell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2014 for this groundbreaking work.
Gerald Donnert, abberior managing director, is pleased about the recognition and at the same time has clear goals in mind:
Ultimately, our microscopes are tools with which one can make fundamental discoveries in biology and medicine that will benefit everyone in the future. At abberior Instruments, we want to equip researchers from all over the world with the sharpest and most powerful fluorescence microscopes that can currently be built.
Gerald Donnert
Managing director of abberior Instruments GmbH
This advances industrial and academic research and helps to identify the systematics of diseases or life on a molecular scale.
The physicist spent many years researching high-resolution microscopy in the NanoBiophotonics department of Max Planck Director Stefan Hell. Together with other department colleagues from the MPI for Biophysical Chemistry and researchers from the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, Donnert and Hell founded abberior Instruments GmbH. Hell, who is still the company's scientific advisor to this day, also sees the award as an award for willingness to take risks and entrepreneurial skills:
The technology transfer award is recognition of the founders' courage to start a company at their own risk. It also recognizes their skill in mastering all entrepreneurial challenges in such a way that this spin-off can grow organically due to its technological lead.
Stefan Hell
Director at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry and cofounder of abberior Instruments GmbH
Max Planck Innovation Managing Director Jörn Erselius adds:
We are very pleased that we as the central technology transfer organization of the Max Planck Society could accompany such a successful company over many years on the way to founding and beyond. abberior Instruments is a prime example of a successful spin-off-based transfer of the results of excellent basic research into outstanding innovative products in the field of microscopy.
Jörn Erselius
Managing director of Max Planck Innovation GmbH
The official award ceremony is expected to take place during the DPG annual conference in March 2022.
About abberior Instruments GmbH
The Göttingen company specializes in high-resolution fluorescence microscopes. abberior Instruments GmbH was founded in 2012 by the scientists Gerald Donnert, Alexander Egner, Benjamin Harke, Stefan Hell, Lars Kastrup, Matthias Reuss and Andreas Schönle. It is a spin-off from the NanoBiophotonics department at the MPI for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen and the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg.
About the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry
At the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry researchers are on the trail of the cellular and molecular processes that control complex life processes. The scientists work at the interface between biology, chemistry and physics to develop increasingly sophisticated techniques to obtain insight into the world of the molecules. With the help of high-resolution microscopes, nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometers, electron microscopes and ultrahigh-performance computers they investigate cells, organelles and proteins. Their aim is to find out the tricks that cells and biomolecules use to fulfil their varied functions – whether processing signals, transporting molecular freight or generating blueprints for protein production. Moreover, they study how genes control development and behaviour – for example, how a complex organism develops from a single egg cell or how our body clock “ticks”.
About Max Planck Innovation
As the technology transfer organization of the Max Planck Society, Max Planck Innovation is the link between industry and basic research. With our interdisciplinary team, we advise and support scientists at the Max Planck Institutes in evaluating inventions, filing patents and starting businesses. We offer industry central access to the innovations of the Max Planck Institutes. We are therefore fulfilling an important task: The transfer of results from basic research into commercially and socially useful products.
Further information can be found at www.max-planck-innovation.com
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