In den Sonderforschungsbereichen (SFB) an der Universität Münster wird Grundlagenforschung auf höchstem Niveau betrieben. Sonderforschungsbereiche sind langfristig angelegte Forschungseinrichtungen einer Hochschule, in denen Wissenschaftler fächerübergreifend an aufwändigen Forschungsvorhaben zusammenarbeiten. Zu den Aufgaben gehört dabei auch die Förderung des wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses. Die Sonderforschungsbereiche werden von der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) finanziert.
The SFB 629 started work in July 2003. It combines the efforts of labs at the Departments of Biology and Medicine to unravel the mechanisms underlying the dynamics of a living cell.
Every living cell known is strictly organized into different compartments which communicate with one another through highly evolved transport chains. Transport between different compartments and thus the organization of a cell requires the concerted action of cytoskeletal, cytoskeleton-associated as well as soluble and membrane-bound proteins. Regulated transport is not only important at the single cell level, but eventually also controls how and when the organism develops. Cells need to secret the correct factors at the correct position and time and they also need to transduce signals initiated by these factors in a tightly controlled manner. Often these signal transductions are accompanied by rearrangements in the cytoskeleton which are particularly evident during development be it in a growing axon or in the motile tip of a fungal hyphen. Such aspects of intracellular dynamics and their importance in cell migration and differentiation are tackled in the SFB 629 by using a number of different systems, experimental strategies and techniques.