Research performed at the Institute of Structural Biology and Biophysics 1 (ISB-1, formerly INB-1 or IBI-1) is on cellular biophysics and signal transduction. In January 2008 the former director of the institute, Prof. Dr. U. Benjamin Kaupp, moved as scientific director to the research centre caesar in Bonn. A number of coworkers followed him during the course of 2008. Prof. Dr. Frank Müller is the acting director of ISB-1.
In ISB-1 biologists, chemists, and physicists closely collaborate and employ a broad spectrum of methods to study cellular information processing at different levels of complexity - ranging from signal recognition to signal transduction and propagation. These processes are examined mainly in sensory cells and neurons. Methods applied cover molecular biology and biochemistry, physiology, anatomy and biophysics as well as fluorescence-based optical methods and imaging.