 Together with the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research and the Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main the institute run the "International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) for Structure and Function of Biological Membranes", a graduate program offering a Ph.D. in the period from 2000 until 2012.A prerequisite for the understanding of the fundamental processes of life is the knowledge of the structure of the participating macromolecules.Two of the four Departments are devoted to the challenging task of determining the structure of membrane proteins.