Group photo of speakers of the symposium, as well as current and former members of Wieland Huttner's research group.
We celebrated the 68th birthday of Wieland Huttner, one of the directors of the MPI-CBG, with a symposium entitled “The Brain – My favourite Organ” on February 26 and 27, 2018.
Wieland Huttner is one of the founding directors of the MPI-CBG. He studied medicine in Hamburg and Oxford. He completed his PhD at the Hamburg University in 1976, and worked as a postdoc at both the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine and at Yale University. In 1981, he became head of a junior research group at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, and group head at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg in 1985. Wieland Huttner served as Professor and Chair at the Institute for Neurobiology at Heidelberg University (1991-2000), and was thereafter appointed as one of the four Founding Directors of the MPI-CBG in 1998. Wieland Huttner is Honorary Professor for Neurobiology at the Technische Universität Dresden and acted as chair of the Scientific Council of the Max Planck Society 2009-2012.
To honour his accomplishments, not one but two Saxon State representatives came to extend their congratulations! The Minister President of the Free State of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, emphasised today the role of Wieland Huttner, among others, in promoting the development and interests of the Free State of Saxony. The Saxon State Minister for Science and the Fine Arts, Dr. Eva-Maria Stange, represented by State Secretary Uwe Gaul, visited the symposium on February 26. In his speech, Uwe Gaul said: “Professor Wieland Huttner gave decisive scientific impulses in the field of cell biology and genetics with the highest international visibility. We are proud of the six Max Planck Institutes in Saxony, which, together with the Center for Systems Biology Dresden, have an excellent research potential in the field of mathematics, physics, chemistry and life sciences. Not least because of the great commitment of the Max Planck Institutes in Dresden, the TU Dresden has achieved such success in the German federal and state Excellence Initiative. Professor Huttner was one of the driving forces behind DRESDEN-concept, especially during its founding phase.”
Happy Birthday, Wieland!
German Press Release of the Saxon State Ministry for Science and the Fine Arts