With about 200 guests and high-ranking representatives from politics and science, Helmholtz Munich opened its Pioneer Campus yesterday. Under the motto of interdisciplinarity, the top research building is intended to attract young talent and promote medical research and development. With high-tech laboratories and a view of the Alps and the Allianz Arena, the 52 million euro building provides the right framework conditions.
After three years of construction, the Helmholtz Pioneer Campus with 6300 m2 in Neuherberg will offer a state-of-the-art infrastructure for 20 pioneer groups and start-ups with a total of 200 workplaces starting this fall. The building, which cost around 52 million euros, is intended to promote internationally networked cutting-edge research in Germany. The federal government contributed 32 million euros, while the Free State financed the rest. With open-plan interior design, co-working spaces and high-tech laboratory areas, it is intended to promote young and innovative and highly qualified researchers from all over the world.
With its three central research areas of Bioengineering, Biomedicine and Biomedical AI, the Helmholtz Pioneer Campus is an integral part of Helmholtz Munich's strategic orientation. State-of-the-art technologies from stem cell research, bioengineering, medical imaging and artificial intelligence, among others, are to be combined here and further developed on an interdisciplinary basis. The goal: to detect complex diseases such as diabetes, cancer or neurodegenerative changes earlier, to diagnose them more specifically and to cure them with personalized methods.
Lighthouse project for interdisciplinary networking and creativity
The exchange and interdisciplinary work at the Pioneer Campus is also a priority for the President of the Helmholtz Association, Prof. Otmar Wiestler. Interdisciplinary networking is important for creative talent, he said: "The Pioneer Campus is a lighthouse project in the Helmholtz Association. Here we want to bring talents together to push the boundaries of health research and implement unconventional ideas."
Pioneers need concrete visions
"With the Pioneer Campus, we are attracting the best young talents to join us in Munich, working in an interdisciplinary way on groundbreaking innovations and new technologies," said Prof. Matthias H. Tschöp, scientific director of the Helmholtz site in Munich. "Thus, the campus not only acts as an accelerator to bring biomedical research to patients faster, it becomes a world-class gamechanger."