The excellence initiative Life Science combines the complex interrelations of Agricultural and Nutritional Science, Biology, and Medicine. It examines molecular diversity as well as interactions of genome and environment within plants, animals and humans. The holistic goal is to broaden the understanding of systematics within evolutionary, physiological and pathological processes.

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The Graduate School, the Collaborative Research Center and various current projects that are supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) are only a few of the challenges at Kiel University. The Excellence Cluster Inflammation at Interfaces is another of the major research foci at Kiel University. In particular, efforts are focused on inflammation in barrier organs such as skin, lungs, and intestines, which do not lead directly to chronic illnesses like the Crohn's disease, psoriasis or asthma but influence neurological diseases and cancer. For it is obvious that the lifestyle of industrial nations is influencing the rapid increase of chronic illnesses. Therefore, fundamental knowledge of their development and treatment are the major tasks modern medicine has to accomplish. The research within this excellence cluster seeks to broaden the understanding that spans the entirety of the inflammatory process at an interface, from genetic variation through to various characteristics among individual humans. It also strives to completely identify metabolism and signaling paths of the process, so as to offer approaches to therapies and preventative measures. Kiel University has already set up a highly specialized medical care center at the University Hospitals of Schleswig-Holstein in Kiel and Lübeck called Excellence Centre for Inflammatory Disease. Here patients benefit from practical applications of the Clusters expertise. Activities at Life Science concentrate on research at the universities of Kiel and Lübeck, at the University Hospitals of Schleswig-Holstein, the Borstel Research Centre and Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology. Infrastructural tasks are taken over by the Leibniz Centre for Medicine and Biosciences. A central platform is established by the Center for Molecular Bioscience (ZMB). It offers an ideal basis for research into the entire spectrum of this cluster from investigating genetic predisposition, to understanding the relationship between the structure and function of molecules, up to molecular mechanisms of inflammation in cell culture and in animal model systems. In cooperation with the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science as well as the Faculty of Medicine, Kiel University is currently establishing an Institute of Theoretical Biology. A new and extensive database is going to complement this excellence initiative.