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12.04.2020

Swiss news TV refers to D-BSSE COVID expert

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As part of the discussions around lifting the federal lock-down, pandemic experts including Tanja Stadler play a key advising role. “We see that the reproduction number drops as off mid March indicating that the sum of all implemented measures has a positive effect” says Tanja, “but an abrupt end to lock-down might cause infection numbers to jump up again”.

09.04.2020

Measures are having an impact

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The “lockdown light” decreed by the Swiss Federal Council has led to each person infected with Sars-​CoV-2 going on to infect only one person on average instead of two or three prior to the lockdown, as calculations by the team of Tanja Stadler have shown. This means the situation is stable, but the epidemic has yet to be contained.

06.04.2020

2020 Eppendorf Award for Young Investigators goes to Randall Platt

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Randall Platt, head of the Biological Engineering Lab, receives the 25th Eppendorf Award for Young European Investigators for his pioneering work developing a method to record timelines of gene expression events using a CRISPR-Cas system. Randall’s work focuses on living diagnostics - engineered bacteria that act as biographers of their environment by continuously recording gene expression information.

02.04.2020

ETH Annual Report 2019

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Which researchers excelled? What were the milestones in the development of our teaching? And what was the most innovative research? The Annual Report 2019 describes ETH's achievements and performance.

01.04.2020

Study hints at selective treatment strategies against tuberculosis

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Not only host or environmental factors determine the outcome of human tuberculosis but also the genetic diversity of the disease-causing bacterium Mycobaterium tuberculosis. Researchers from the ETH-groups of Mattia Zampieri and Uwe Sauer, Jörg Stelling from the D-BSSE, and Sebastien Gagneux from the Swiss TPH integrated metabolomic and genomic data to unravel the potential role of genetic variations in the bacterium's metabolism and antibiotic treatment strategies.

27.03.2020

BRCCH urgent call for applications aimed to combat COVID-19

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The Botnar Research Centre for Child Health (BRCCH) announces the launch of a fast-​track call to address several critical areas related to the COVID-​19 pandemic. The application deadline is 8 April.

23.03.2020

New technique for recording neuronal activity in vivo

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In a collaboration with groups at the Stanford University, CA, USA, and the Crick Institute, UK, the Bio Engineering Lab headed by Andreas Hierlemann developed a new technique to measure neuronal signals in live brains. The technique combines bundles of long metal wires of a few micrometer diameter with planar silicon-based CMOS microelectronics technology. The new devices show excellent performance in reading out neuronal activity in awake moving mice.

18.03.2020

Meet Alessio Buccino combining computational modeling and neuro-engineering

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The postdoctoral ETH-fellow from Italy has a background in computational neuroscience and builds models that describe in detail the electrophysiological activity of neurons. After a rather bumpy start in Switzerland, he eventually had his first work day in the Hierlemann Lab, where he met "a vibrant and welcoming group". Once the coronavirus-curve flattens, he plans to explore the Swiss alps with his snowboard.

10.03.2020

“We then calculate how fast the virus spreads”

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How fast does the corona virus spread? Are there differences in the spreading in Wuhan, PR China, and Northern Italy? Tanja Stadler, head of the Computational Evolution group, responds to media questions and explains the statistical model that analyses the genetic genealogy of the pathogen (in German).

10.03.2020

Circulatory failure is predictable

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Researchers at ETH Zurich and Bern University Hospital have developed a method for predicting circulatory failure in patients in intensive care units – enabling clinicians to intervene at an early stage. Their approach uses machine learning methods to evaluate an extensive body of patient data. The results from this prototype were published in Nature Medicine.

Research at D-BSSE related to the COVID-19 pandemic

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Study at D-BSSE

Find information on the two D-BSSE Master's degree programmes (Master in Biotechnology, and Master in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics) and on the D-BSSE PhD programme.

Our Spin-offs

From the Theory of Biosystems to Understanding and Engineering Cells and Organisms

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Research in life sciences is central to overcoming the challenges of human health and disease, production processes in industry and their impact on the environment. The magnitude and complexity of these challenges call for a paradigm shift towards holistic, systems-based and interdisciplinary approaches. At the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE), experimental and computational biologists and engineers work together in an interdisciplinary team in order to conduct comprehensive analysis of complex processes in cells and organisms. They develop strategies and techniques for the programming and rational design of cell functions, and implement these in complex biological systems. D-BSSE research is driven by open scientific questions and unmet societal needs in biotechnology and life sciences.
The mission of D-BSSE is the understanding, rational design and programming of complex biological systems from the nanoscale up to whole organisms.

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