ISAS is a non-profit research institute in the legal form of a registered society. The purpose of the society is to promote analytical research in materials sciences and life sciences. The society's statutory organs are the Executive Board, the Supervisory Board, the Scientific Advisory Board and the General Meeting. The institute consists of three research departments at the two locations in Dortmund and two application laboratories in Berlin; the administrative departments are organised as staff units.

As a member of the Leibniz Association, the institute is sponsored by the German federal government and its states.

Organs of the association

General Meeting

Honorary members: Dr. Dieter Sommer Dr. Günter Prescher

Supervisory Board

Dr. Christiane Fricke

Scientific Advisory Board

Prof. Dr. Ina Koch (stv.)

Executive Board

Chairman: Prof. Dr. Albert Sickmann Chief Financial Officer: Jürgen Bethke

Staff Units

Data protection

Patrick Borkowski, ecoprotec GmbH

Service Division Human Resources, IP Management and Communication

Dorit Günther

Occupational safety

Erika Pulvermacher

Service Division Finances, Procurement, IT and Facility Management

Jürgen Bethke

Research departments

Teams & working groups

You can find a detailed organigram of our institute with all our teams and research groups here.

Executive Board

The Executive Board at ISAS consists of two members. It heads the society and two of its members represent it judicially and extra-judicially. Together the members of the Executive Board are particularly responsible for determining the strategic objectives of ISAS and for preparing the annual accounts. The duties of the Executive Board are laid down in detail by rules of procedure that regulate the matters reserved for the complete Board and the division of tasks amongst the individual board members. The Executive Board is represented and supported in the fulfilment of its duties by the society's staff in their spheres of responsibility.

Prof. Dr. Albert Sickmann, Chairman (left)
Jürgen Bethke, Chief Financial Officer

Scientific directors and staff units

Scientific directors

The Executive Board is supported by the scientific directors, the heads of the research departments at ISAS, in matters of strategic scientific importance. The regular meetings of the directors focus on further developing the institute's research programmes, on coordinating interdisciplinary research and on developing and providing technical science services. This applies both to internal work and to external target groups from science and industry.

Albert Sickmann, Director of Bioanalytics

Matthias Gunzer, Director of Biospectroscopy

Kristina Lorenz, Director of Interface Analytics

Norbert Esser, Director of Application Labs Berlin

Staff units

In the scope of his responsibility for administrative matters, Jürgen Bethke also heads the staff unit Finances, Procurement, IT and Facility Management.

Dorit Günther has been an authorised manager of the society in the scope of the procura since 2012. She heads the staff unit for Personnel, IP Management and Communication.

Supervisory Board

The Supervisory Board appoints the members of the Board of Directors and undertakes supervisory duties for the society. It oversees all scientific, programmatic and financial matters of the society, insofar as such are not reserved for the General Meeting. It is directly involved in decisions of fundamental importance for the society; in particular, it determines the principles for monitoring the success of the society, approves the financial planning and research planning and prepares proposals for the General Meeting to amend the statutes. The chairperson of the Supervisory Board is Dr Christiane Fricke (State of North Rhine-Westphalia). The deputy is Prof Dr Gerhard Schembecker (TU Dortmund University).

Members of the Supervisory Board:

  • Federal Republic of Germany, Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Berlin
  • State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Ministry of Culture and Science of the state of NRW, Düsseldorf
  • Senate Department for Higher Education and Research, Health, Long-Term Care and Gender Equality                                                 Department of Higher Education and Research, Berlin
  • City of Dortmund
  • TU Dortmund University
  • Ruhr University Bochum
  • Berlin Technical University
  • Dr. Susanne Eickemeier, University of Design, Offenbach-on-Main
  • Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Ursula Gather, Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung, Essen
  • Prof. Dr. med. Dieter Häussinger, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf
  • Dr. Joachim Richert, BASF SE, Ludwigshafen
  • Prof. Dr. Dr. med. Thomas Thum, Institute for Molecular and Translational Therapeutic Strategies, Hannover Medical School (MHH), Hannover

Scientific Advisory Board

The Scientific Advisory Board provides continuous advice to the Board of Directors and the Supervisory Board concerning the on-going scientific work of the society. It monitors the quality of the scientific work by means of annual audits in accordance with the guidelines on quality controls laid down by the Leibniz Association for its member institutes. The current contact person of the Scientific Advisory Board is Prof Dr Jörg Feldmann (University of Graz). The deputy is Professor Ina Koch (Goethe University Frankfurt).

Members of the Scientific Advisory Board:

  • Prof. Ronen Alon, Department of Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel
  • Dr. Anne K. Bendt, Singapore Lipidomics Incubator (SLING), Life Sciences Institute (LSI), National University of Singapore
  • Prof. Dr. Jörg Feldmann, Institute of Chemistry, University of Graz
  • Prof. Dr. Denise Hilfiker-Kleiner, Department of Medicine, University of Marburg
  • Prof. Dr. Ina Koch, Institute of Computer Science, Department of Molecular Bioinformatics, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main
  • Prof. Dr. Markus Sauer, Department of Biotechnology and Biophysics - Biozentrum, Julius-Maximilians-Universität of Würzburg
  • Prof. Dr. Burkhart Schraven, Institute for Molecular and Clinical Immunology (IMKI), Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg
  • Prof. Andrea Urbani, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy
  • Prof. Dr. Heike Walles, Core Facility Tissue Engineering, Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg

General Meeting

Further assignees

Works Council:
Peter Röper (head of the Dortmund council)
Ilona Engler (head of the Berlin council)

Complete Staff Council:
Peter Röper (chair)
Ilona Engler (vice-chair)

Data protection officer:
Patrick Borkowski (ecoprotec GmbH, Paderborn)

Occupational Safety & Radiation Protection Officer:
Erika Pulvermacher

Equal Opportunity Commissioner:
Regina Fehring

Biological Safety Officer:
Dr. Wolfram Föllmann

Laser Safety Officers:
Norman Ahlmann (Dortmund)
Reinhard Tischendorf (Berlin)

Animal Welfare Officer:
Prof. Dr. Gero Hilken

Ombudspersons:
Dr. Roland Hergenröder
Dr. Yvonne Reinders