For questions are available: Prof. Dr. Franziska Matthäus, Prof. Carlo Giersch, Prof. Dr. med. Enrico Schleiff, Prof. Rudolf Steinberg, Prof. dr. Ingo Ebersberger, Prof. Dr. med. Volker Lindenstruth. Contact: presse_at_fias.uni-frankfurt.de FOUNDATION GIERSCH enables professorship at FIAS FRANKFURT. Franziska Matthäus will be Professor of Bioinformatics at the Department of Biology at Goethe University from October 2016. She is also a Fellow of the FIAS - Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, where theoretically working groups from computer science and the life sciences work together on an interdisciplinary basis. Her work will focus on bioinformatics data analysis and the recognition and modeling of complex patterns in biological systems.

In her research, Prof. Matthäus will deal with the development of mathematical models and the simulation of biological systems. Her focus is the movement of cells. "Thus, Franziska Matthäus is an excellent supplement to FIAS and fits in very well with the existing research interests at the Goethe University. There are already two bioinformatics professorships in the departments of Computer Science and Biosciences, which are excellently supplemented by the expertise of Mrs. Matthäus, "said Vice President Prof. Enrico Schleiff.

Scientists working together at FIAS work on the theory of complex, self-organizing structures within the scope of their specializations. Together, they study the properties of living and inanimate systems and analyze them from the dynamic interactions of elemental components.

The professorship was made possible, in particular, by the FOUNDATION GIERSCH, which is sponsoring it with 600,000 euros over the next six years. "Bioinformatics is a pioneering, new field of research. Within the framework of our foundation, we always endeavor to initiate and promote innovations according to the foundation's priorities. Solving questions from biology using theoretical computer-assisted methods fits our approach of promoting basic research, as we have been doing at FIAS for many years", said donor Carlo Giersch. Professor Giersch is pleased that the large number of applications for the professorship has been won by a female scientist. "This shows that funding concepts for women in the natural sciences, such as the Franziska Braun Prize, which we award every two years at the TUD, are indeed effective in the research landscape," adds the founder.

Franziska Matthäus (picture, P.Benjamin) was born in 1975 in Friedrichroda in Thuringia. After studying biophysics at the Humboldt University in Berlin, she spent her doctoral thesis at the Interdisciplinary Center for Mathematical and Computational Modeling (ICM) at the University of Warsaw. In 2005 she completed her dissertation at the Polish Academy of Sciences, which was graded "summa cum laude".

Franziska Matthäus then moved to the International Research Training Group of the University of Heidelberg as a postdoc. In 2011, she took over the management of the research group "Complex Biological Processes" at the Center for Modeling and Simulation in the Biosciences (BIOMS). For the summer semester 2016, Dr. Matthäus then followed a call to the junior professorship for supramolecular and cellular simulations at the Center for Computational and Theoretical Biology (CCTB) of the University of Würzburg. In July 2016 she accepted the call to the Goethe University Frankfurt and FIAS.

Information: Frankfurt Institute of Advanced Studies, Ruth-Moufang-Straße 1, 60438 Frankfurt am Main. Tel: (069) 798- 47531; matthaeus_at_fias.uni-frankfurt.de

The Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS) is an interdisciplinary research institution for the theoretical study of complex structures in nature, which was founded by the Goethe University Frankfurt and funded by public donors, foundations and private individuals. The work focuses on basic research in the areas of brain research, life sciences, computer science, chemistry and physics.

The Goethe University is a high-research university in the European financial center of Frankfurt. Founded in 1914 by private means, mainly by Jewish donors, it has since provided pioneering work in the fields of social, social and economic sciences, medicine, quantum physics, brain research and labor law. On January 1, 2008, her return to her historic roots as a foundation university gave her a high degree of personal responsibility. Today it is one of the ten third-strongest and three largest universities in Germany with three clusters of excellence in medicine, life sciences as well as humanities and social sciences. Together with the Technical University of Darmstadt and the University of Mainz, she is a partner of the Transnational Strategic University Alliance Rhein-Main.

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