University of Freiburg Faculty of Biology

In 2010 the faculty was ranked in the "Excellence Group" for "biology, chemistry and mathematics"[14] and among Germany's top research universities in the field of biology, according to the 2012 CHE University Ranking,[15][16] according to several criteria.[4] Several institutions funded within the German Universities Excellence Initiative are affiliated to the faculty of biology:[17]

• Centre for Biological Signalling Studies (bioss)[4][18]
• Spemann Graduate School of Biology and Medicine (SGBM)[19]
• Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS)
• BrainLinks-BrainTools

The faculty's botanical garden was founded in 1620 by the university's Faculty of Medicine as hortus medicus.[20][21] It was almost completely destroyed during the Thirty Years' War in 1632 and in 1677, when the city of Freiburg was taken by French troops, barracks were built on the former area of the botanical garden.[20][21]

The botanical garden was relocated to an area of 2.7 hectare close to the river Dreisam in 1766, where the first greenhouses were built in the years of 1827 and 1828. Due to the city's expansion, the garden had to be relocated again in 1879.[20]

Today's botanical garden was built in yet another, fourth location between 1912 and 1920.[20] It features four exhibition greenhouses that, in total, span an area of 910 m². They are thematically divided into "tropic", "ferns", "succulents" and "cold house" (mainly species from Australia and New Zealand).[22] A research greenhouse is considered a special feature of the faculty.[4]

The University of Freiburg team has been the first German team to participate in the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) undergraduate synthetic biology competition held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,[23] where it repeatedly scored highly.[24][25][26] The participation in the competition is supported by numerous university institutions, among them the Centre for Biological Signalling Studies (bioss) funded by the German Universities Excellence Initiative.

The genetically engineered golden rice was developed by the University of Freiburg professor Peter Beyer and the ETH Zurich professor Ingo Potrykus from 1992 to 2000.[27] It was considered a breakthrough in biotechnology at the time of publication and now helps to provide Vitamin A to people lacking access to it in their diet. One existing crop, genetically engineered "golden rice" that produces vitamin A, already holds enormous promise for reducing blindness and dwarfism that result from a vitamin-A deficient diet.[28]

The faculty provides service centres such as the International Moss Stock Center (IMSC) which collects, preserves and distributes several mosses for scientific research.