Breakthroughs and New Research Areas at TUM
In 20 years, our Fellows and hosts conducted more than 260 scientific projects together. The following are a few examples that we think were particularly successful: They yielded groundbreaking new results through interdisciplinary research and/or demonstrated new research avenues for TUM and opened up new research fields for the long term
Focus Group Fundamental Physics
Searching for New Particles and Forces Beyond the Standard Model
Andrzej J. Buras, Stefan Pokorski and Gino Isidori, 2007-2010
The TUM-IAS invested in efforts to consolidate and eventually extend the famous Standard Model of particle physics by providing first a Carl von Linde Senior Fellowship to Prof. Andrzej J. Buras of TUM, followed by Hans Fischer Senior Fellowships to Profs. Stefan Pokorski of Warsaw University and Gino Isidori of the Frascati National Laboratories. They are not only world-renowned theoretical physicists, but their work was instrumental in creating an important collaborative effort at TUM in this very active field. Despite the experimental confirmation of the existence of the Higgs boson in 2012 at CERN, many open questions in particle physics remain, requiring new particles and forces at distance scales by at least an order of magnitude smaller than an attometer. The fundamental physics group at TUM-IAS, led by Andrzej J. Buras, developed very powerful theoretical methods which help experimentalists around the world to discover this new world and thereby answer several outstanding questions that the Standard Model could not answer. This includes, in particular, a hierarchical spectrum of the elementary particles and leptons. The investment of TUM-IAS proved to be wise and contributed to a leading position of the TUM research at the forefront of elementary particle research.
The Max Planck Medal 2020 and the Sakurai Award 2024, the highest awards in theoretical physics of the German and American Physics Societies, respectively, given to Andrzej J. Buras as well as the Advanced ERC Grant (2011-2016) won by him culminate the successes of the TUM-IAS in this field in the last 20 years.
Focus Group Neuroscience
The Function and Dysfunction of Neural Circuits
Arthur Konnerth, Thomas Misgeld and Bert Sakmann, 2007-2013
The work of Profs. Arthur Konnerth and Thomas Misgeld, in collaboration with Nobel laureate Prof. Bert Sakmann, revealed essential aspects of neuronal function and dysfunction from a cell biological view to the circuit level. This work ranges from discovery studies, how sensory information is processed in mammalian cortex, to disease-oriented studies of how cortical circuit function is disrupted in Alzheimer’s disease or Multiple Sclerosis. This involved new intravital microscopy approaches for imaging across many scales. These enabled large-scale studies of circuit function, that involved recording neuronal activity from hundreds of neurons using calcium imaging, but also subcellular investigations, e.g. into the function of individual neuronal contacts, interactions between neurons and their supporting glial cells, or even dynamic observations of intracellular structures, such as energy-providing mitochondria or the cell’s shape-giving cytoskeleton. Together, the efforts by this TUM-IAS Focus Group proved to be foundational for a new DFG Cluster of Excellence (initiated by Thomas Misgeld together with colleagues from LMU), which over the past decade has expanded such systemic approaches to brain function and dysfunction to the entire Munich neuroscience community.
Synbreed: Statistical and Quantitative Genomics. Enhancing genomic breeding with open sourceopen-source software.
Facilitating new bio-engineering technologies
Daniel Gianola & Chris-Carolin Schön, 2012-2015
Another fine example is the TUM-IAS funding of the development of methods for genome-enabled prediction of complex traits using DNA information as an input. Work focused mainly on adapting Bayesian theory and computational methods and machine learning to plant breeding, involving collaboration with various research groups in Denmark, Spain and the USA. The activities included international courses, seminars, symposia and the training of doctoral and post-doctoral candidates. The Synbreed open-source Statistical Analysis Package for Plant and Animal Breeding originally proposed by Prof. Chris-Carolin Schön had great impact in the scientific community towards making breeding based on DNA analysis and phenotyping practical. The combined expertise of Prof. Schön and Prof. Gianola created a powerful interdisciplinary environment for tackling challenging research questions in the field of agricultural genetics and genomics
Focus Group Medicinal and Bioinorganic Chemistry
The chemistry beyond the molecule
Angela Casini, 2016-2019
One of the Focus Group’s aims included exploring supramolecular strategies to achieve novel drug delivery systems for metallodrugs. Since 2016, various proof-of-concept results were obtained in this area by Hans Fischer Senior Fellow Prof. Angela Casini (Cardiff University) in collaboration with the Department of Chemistry of the TUM School of Natural Sciences (Prof. Fritz E. Kühn), which unraveled new uses of metal-based supramolecules and materials for biomedical applications, including as multifunctional targeted theranostics. Notably, Angela Casini established highly interdisciplinary connections with Hans Fischer Senior Fellow Prof. Bernhard Schrefler (University of Padova) and Hans Fischer Fellow Prof. Alessandro Reali (University of Pavia), both world-leading experts in the field of computational mechanics and advanced materials. These interactions were pivotal in the development of the Focus Group’s topic towards the study of non-covalent interactions in materials by advanced atomistic simulations optimized by machine learning algorithms. Based on these advancements, Angela Casini now leads an international team funded by the prestigious EIC (European Innovation Council) Path Finder Open grant to develop next generation supramolecular radio-theranostic agents. Since 2019, Angela Casini has been a Liesel Beckmann Distinguished Professor and Chair of Medicinal and Bioinorganic Chemistry at TUM.
Computational Science and Engineering
In focus: Reliable and predictive computational simulation
The vast field of computational science and engineering has been a focus since the outset of TUM-IAS. Many world-leading researchers have been appointed TUM-IAS Fellows. Among them are Mirko R. Bothien, Ioannis Brilakis, Eleni Chatzi, Markus Hegland, George Karniadakis, Antonia Larese, Rainald Löhner, Luca Magri, Michael Ortiz, Alessandro Reali, Bernhard Schrefler, Zohar Yosibash and Nicolas Zabaras, working with their hosts Kai-Uwe Bletzinger, André Borrmann, Hans-Joachim Bungartz, Phaedon-Stelios Koutsourelakis, Wolfgang Polifke, Ernst Rank, Thomas Sattelmayer, Daniel Straub, and Wolfgang Wall, and many other TUM scientists on advanced modeling of physical and technical systems, on the development of new computational methods, including sophisticated software and application-oriented simulations on all scales of computers, including data sciences and machine learning techniques. While fundamental algorithmic developments have been of central interest in all groups, application fields range from structural and fluid mechanics to biomechanics, simulation for additive manufacturing, or geophysical problems, including reliability analysis and system identification. TUM has sustained and strengthened its world-leading position in this field, documented, e.g., by establishing new international conference series (Simulation in Additive Manufacturing, biannual since 2017) or hosting the World Congress on Computational Mechanics in 2026. Furthermore, based on a very substantial donation, TUM could establish the Georg Nemetschek Institute - Artificial Intelligence for the Built World, which would not have been possible without previous achievements obtained through the support of TUM-IAS
Focus Group Visual Computing
Towards Photorealistic Reconstruction
Matthias Niessner, Angel Chang, Leonidas Guibas, Luisa Verdoliva, 2017-2023
The Focus Group Visual Computing hosted by Prof. Matthias Niessner (TUM-IAS Rudolf Mößbauer Tenure Track Fellow) is pushing the state-of-the-art at the intersection of vision, graphics, and machine learning with its research mission to obtain high-quality digital models of the real world. For instance, the group has developed methods to obtain photorealistic avatars from which videos can be synthesized that are barely distinguishable from the real video captures. The research ideas have led to the spin-off Synthesia, co-founded by the group, which now has a market evaluation of over 1 billion USD with over 450 employees across Europe. Academically, the group has established a wide range of collaborations, including on 3D geometric machine learning with Prof. Leonidas Guibas’ team at Stanford, who is also a Hans Fischer Senior Fellow at the TUM-IAS. In addition, the research on media forensics to detect AI-generated images and videos with the group from Prof. Luisa Verdoliva’s lab in Naples – also a Hans Fischer Senior Fellow – is critical to address the ethical implications of synthetically generated AI-based visual content. Finally, the Focus Group Visual Computing established a new DFG research unit “Learning and Simulation in Visual Computing” in collaboration with the other vision and graphics groups at TUM to further push the boundaries in AI-based visual computing research.