New SupraFAB research building, FU Berlin

Visualisation: Nickl & Partner Architekten AG

The site for the new building is in the Dahlem district of the Steglitz-Zehlendorf borough. The new building will be erected behind an existing FU institute structure and be physically linked to it. The site is currently occupied by four dilapidated buildings and is still used by the Technische Universität Berlin.

The new building for research into supramolecular functional architectures at biointerfaces has a total usable floor area of approx. 3,600 m² and will consist of basement, ground floor and three upper floors. It will be divided into approximately 2,400 m² of highly specialized research laboratories, low vibration and defined climate-controlled measurement facilities with storage areas and approximately 1,200 m² of office, conference and lounge space.

Researchers from the Freie Universität departments of biology, chemistry, pharmaceutics and physics work together on the Supramolecular Functional Architectures at Biointerfaces (SupraFAB) project. The supramolecular architectures at biological interfaces researched within the framework of the project play a central functional role in living systems, such as the interaction of active substances with protein complexes in the cell membrane or pathogens with cell surfaces. The researchers combine physical-chemical model systems with reconstituted, fully defined biological systems for detailed investigation of the underlying mechanisms of membrane proteins, i.e., of proteins on the layer that surrounds every cell.