Testing strength

Benoît Ladoux is a biophysicist and an Alexander von Humboldt Professor at FAU. He investigates how cells react to physical influences, a topic that is of interest, for instance, to cancer research.

Benoît Ladoux has spent most of his career in Paris and Singapore. He is used to big cities, and Erlangen is his first experience of a university town near a forest. “It is fantastic to be able to get out and jog in the beautiful countryside,” he says. The physicist does not focus on plants in his research, however, instead he concentrates exclusively on cells in humans and animals. He investigates how cells deform, react to each other and re-align under certain conditions. “Cells’ proportions change, for instance, through physical forces or due to the environment,” Ladoux explains. “Cells can become hard, as is seen for example in breast cancer.”

At the intersection between various disciplines

Originally, Ladoux wanted to study astrophysics, but that would have involved first and foremost observation. He discarded his original plan, also after having the opportunity to conduct research on molecules while completing his military service in France and soon realizing that the various scientific disciplines are all irrevocably intertwined. “Today, I am conducting research at the intersection of physics, biology, medicine and engineering. FAU is unique in the opportunities it offers for working in such an interdisciplinary setting,” the researcher explains.

Ideal working conditions

His place of work is located in the new, cutting-edge Max-Planck-Institut für Physik und Medizin, the interdisciplinary joint research center of FAU, Uniklinikum Erlangen and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL). Here he has the ideal working conditions: The Chair of Biophysics has recourse to an interdisciplinary team of experts and numerous high-tech tools, such as high resolution microscopes. As a Humboldt Professor, Benoît Ladoux hopes to gain new insights into cancer research and to translate this directly into new health care.

Author: Susanne Stemmler

This article is part of the FAU magazine

Innovation, diversity and passion: Those are the three guiding principles of our FAU, as stated in our mission statement. At FAU, we live these guiding principles every day in all that we do – in research, in teaching and when it comes to sharing the knowledge created at our university with society.

This, the second issue of our FAU magazine, underlines all of the above: It shows researchers who tirelessly keep pushing the boundaries of what has been believed to be possible. It introduces students who work together to achieve outstanding results for their FAU, talks about teaching staff who pass on their knowledge with infectious enthusiasm and creativity. And it reports back on members of staff with foresight and a talent for getting to the crux of the matter who are dedicated to improving the (research) infrastructure at FAU as well as people in key positions who are there for their university and are committed to its research location.