Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Overview
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, Germany, founded in 1997. It is part of the Max Planck Society network.
The institute comprises five departments (Developmental and Comparative Psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, Evolutionary Genetics
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
, Human Evolution
Human evolution
Human evolution refers to the evolutionary history of the genus Homo, including the emergence of Homo sapiens as a distinct species and as a unique category of hominids and mammals...
, Linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
, and Primatology
Primatology
Primatology is the scientific study of primates. It is a diverse discipline and researchers can be found in academic departments of anatomy, anthropology, biology, medicine, psychology, veterinary sciences and zoology, as well as in animal sanctuaries, biomedical research facilities, museums and zoos...
) and several Junior Scientist Groups, and currently employs about three hundred and thirty people.
Well-known scientists currently based at the institute include Svante Pääbo
Svante Pääbo
Svante Pääbo is a Swedish biologist specializing in evolutionary genetics. He was born in 1955 in Stockholm to Sune Bergström, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Bengt I. Samuelsson and John R. Vane in 1982, and his mother, Estonian Karin Pääbo.He earned his PhD from Uppsala...
(genetics), Bernard Comrie
Bernard Comrie
Bernard Comrie is a British-born linguist. Comrie is a specialist in linguistic typology and linguistic universals, and on Caucasian languages....
(linguistics), Michael Tomasello
Michael Tomasello
Michael Tomasello is an American developmentalpsychologist. He is a co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.-Life:...
(psychology), Christophe Boesch
Christophe Boesch
Christophe Boesch is a primatologist who studies chimpanzees. He and his wife work together, and he has both written articles and directed documentaries about chimpanzees....
(primatology), and Jean-Jacques Hublin
Jean-Jacques Hublin
Jean-Jacques Hublin is a French Paleoanthropologist. Currently, he is a Professor at the Max Planck Society, Leiden University and the University of Leipzig and the founder and director of the Department of Human Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany...
(evolution).
In July 2006, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and 454 Life Sciences
454 Life Sciences
454 Life Sciences, is a biotechnology company based in Branford, Connecticut. It is a subsidiary of Roche, and specializes in high-throughput DNA sequencing.-History and Major Achievements:...
announced that they would be sequencing
Sequencing
In genetics and biochemistry, sequencing means to determine the primary structure of an unbranched biopolymer...
the Neanderthal genome
Neanderthal Genome Project
The Neanderthal genome project is a collaboration of scientists coordinated by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany and 454 Life Sciences in the United States to sequence the Neanderthal genome....
over the next two years.
