Protective artificial ventilation has been identified as one of the most important research fields, which demands an interdisciplinary approach. For patients suffering from Acute Lung Injury (ALI) or Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) artificial ventilation is a mandatory treatment. Unfortunately the ventilation also causes life threatening side effects. The goal of this priority program “protective artificial ventilation” is to develop new individually tailored ventilation strategies, based on the understanding of the underlying mechanics and medical procedures. For this challenging task a cooperation of competent research groups with engineering as well as medical backgrounds is essential. In particular, the former group brings extensive expertise on the computational and experimental mechanics side whilst the latter brings expertise covering imaging, physiology, anesthesia and intensive care medicine. Within this interdisciplinary project there are some basic project aims: “Basic principals and diagnostic”, “biomedical consequences” and "protective artificial ventilation".