Congratulations to Krishna, who defended his PhD thesis "Engineering novel tools for mechanotyping and mechanocontrol of neurons from the central nervous system" on 19th May 2023. As Krishna's thesis was a collaborative project with Andreas Hierlemann's group, he was also awarded a collaborative hat. Thank you very much for the great apero and party and congrats again!
Congratulations to Nina on defending her PhD thesis! Nina defended her PhD thesis "Characterization of folding pathways of polytopic transmembrane proteins" on 28th April 2023. She received the our group's first recycable and edible PhD hat. Thank you very much for the apero and the real Linzertorte!
Congratulations to Sophie on defending her PhD thesis! On Monday, 30th January, Sophie defended her PhD thesis "Mechanical Manipulation and Characterization of Single Cells with Nanotools ". As is tradition in our group, Sophie was awarded a signature Müller Force graduation hat. Thank you, Sophie, for the delicious apéro and congrats!
The speakers at the Ethics of Engineering Life Conference held in September 2022 in Rome agreed on a pronouncement which calls for a continuation of the fruitful dialogue among different disciplines and relevant stakeholders, saying: “In a world in which engineering life is rapidly improving, and new challenges arise in its application, a common effort to disentangle the moral issues would imply universal benefits in terms of ethical admissibility and allow to find the right path forward”.
Our group enters the world-renowned Locarno Film Festival from August 7–17, 2019. NCCR members Daniel Müller, biologist Barbara Treutlein, and ethicist Ralf Stutzki will discuss "The ethical challenges of engineering life and the effects on human identity". The event will also be broadcast live on the internet and traditionally attracts considerable media attention. Participating in the festival, Selen, from our group will participate in the ‘BaseCamp laboratory of ideas’.
From 16-18 November 2020 our group together with the NCCR Molecular Systems Engineering (www.nccr-mse.org), the pontifical academy of life (PAL) of the Vatican, and the Babino Gesu Children Hospital, organizes an international conference on the engineering of molecular and cellular systems for a better life. Internationally outstanding experts will discuss the topic from scientific, social, historic, ethical, legal and religious perspectives.
From August 27 to 29, 2017 our NCCR Molecular Systems Engineering organizes the first biennial International Conference on Molecular Systems Engineering (ICMSE) in Basel. The ICMSE focuses on the emerging field of molecular systems engineering and will feature speakers and participants from leading international research institutions.
Don't miss the this year's group retreat from May 11th-16th. We will meet, present and discuss ongoing and future science at the Villa La Collina/Lago di Como, Italy (www.kas.de/villalacollina/en/). This year several international scientists and colleagues will join our retreat coming from Sweden, Germany, and Switzerland.
From 11.-16. Sepmetber 2016 we organize together with the Groups of Horst Vogel (EPFL), Lukas Tamm (University Virginia) and the Biophysical Society of the United Staates above conference to cover recent developments for investigating biochemical reactions and networks at, in, and across membranes of artificial and cell membrane-derived vesicles. The conference will take part at the beautiful Monte Verita in Ascona, Switzerland.
NCCR Lunch Seminars
Don't miss the NCCR lunch seminars. Exciting science and tasy sandwiches provided.
NCCR SeminBar
Don't miss the NCCR SeminBar! Internationally well known speakers present multidisciplinary science at the Ackermannshof in Basel. Jay's Indian Restaurant provides exciting drinks and food. After the talk life music will be presented and at very late times DJ Morbus (alias Max H.) will bring the vibes in a coll lounge atmosphere.
Group Retreat 2016
Don't miss the this year's group retreat from April 27-30. We will meet, present and discuss ongoing and future science atthe Hotel Bellevue in Davos/Switzerland (www.bellevuewiesen.com).
In his latest publication, Krishna characterized how cortical neurons sense and respond to various mechanical stimuli. The cover image of Krishna’s work depicts a colored scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image of a network of cortical neurons grown on a microelectrode array used for combined force and electrophysiological measurements.
How cells modulate their adhesion to the extracellular matrix (ECM) and to neighboring cells during mitotic cell rounding remained elusive. We recently deciphered that cell-ECM adhesion components are released prior to mitosis and are rewired to synergize with cadherins to strengthen adhesion to adjacent cells.
So far, it has remained elusive how cells initially sense and respond to fibrillar extracellular matrices during adhesion initiation and how this initial sensing continuously influences cell behavior. In our recent paper published in Advanced Science, we engineered biomimetic fibrillar fibronectin matrices using 3D-printed microgrids and simple solution shearing.
Until recently, it was assumed that cells simply burst and die at the end of their life. Now, a team of researches at the Biozentrum, University of Basel, the University of Lausanne and our group (Stefania Mari and group alumna Kristyna Pluhackova) have provided new insights into the final step of cell death.
