Katharina Landfester is a German chemist who is a professor at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research. Her research considers the physical properties of droplets, polymerisation in emulsion and the synthesis of nanoparticles.
Landfester joined the University of Ulm as a full professor and head of the Department of Organic Chemistry. Whilst at the university, she started to explore materials for biomedical applications, with a focus on better understanding the interactions of nanoparticles with cellular compartments.[2] By 2008 she had been appointed director of the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research.
Landfester has studied colloids with precisely controlled physical properties.[3] Colloids are particles suspended in a liquid, and can permit the encapsulation of therapeutic and self-healing agents as well as the creation of specific nanostructures.[3] She is interested in the creation of protocells – vesicular structures that are generally considered the minimal units of synthetic biology – from self-assembled block copolymers.[4] These block copolymers contain permeable nanocontainers that can act as cell-like functions.[4]