Community News

We are happy to announce that the successful partnership of ETH Zurich with PubliBike from Zurich will now be extended to Basel. Staff and students of the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering can rent the Velospot bikes or e-bikes in Basel-Stadt free of charge for the first 15 minutes (each ride) for a period of 100 days from purchase.

Damla Ortac already had a job as a software engineer when she graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science. But she began to have doubts about her chosen career and decided to do something totally different. Today she is a second-year Master's student in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics.

G-Protein Coupled Receptors (GPCR) are cell-surface receptors that detect molecules outside the cell and activate cellular responses. They regulate a large variety of pathophysiological processes and are therefore the target of extensive drug discovery efforts. In her Spark-funded project from the Swiss National Science Foundation, Asli Azizoglu from the Computational Systems Biology group will develop a technology platform that identifies very efficiently functional drugs that target GPCRs.

Launching in March 2024, the NCCR MSE is inviting Phd students and postdoctoral researchers to apply for the new art-science exchange programme: “Brigding Horizons - Art and Science’s Creative Collision”.

Bethany Allen and Marina Nikolova, two postdoctoral researchers at D-BSSE, and their team members won the first place at herHack, Switzerland’s largest hackathon for women. Competing with 31 teams, their project involved developing a concept to help Migros, the Swiss retail company, provide customers with sustainability data on their grocery shopping. The jury liked best that the team chose to adapt an existing app, which meant that the solution was more sustainable than other teams’ proposals.

On 28 November, the D-BSSE celebrated the successful moving into its new home BSS on campus Schällemätteli with a full-day retreat and party. Some 200 members started the day with Lightening Talks presented by research, administrative and technical groups. On the second half of the day, workshops on a large variety of topics were held, followed by a rally across the building. At the closing ceremony, the department head acknowledged the extraordinary efforts of every single D-BSSE member.

Two senior scientists receive rapid funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation for their novel and unconventional research ideas: Davide Eletto and Yingjun Liu. Their projects were selected for SNF spark grants in a double-blind reviewing process. Congratulations!

Moving a whole department to a new location requires extraordinary efforts in careful preparation and planning, and ongoing flexibility and response during execution. And it requires dedicated and forward-looking people who manage this demanding process. Interview with Niels Bürckert, Head of Facility Services for Science and Teaching (FaST) – and manager of the largest moving the D-BSSE has ever seen.

Jasper Janssens and Marius Lange, postdoctoral researchers in the Quantitative Developmental Biology group led by Barbara Treutlein, will use organoids to study regulatory mechanisms of the brain throughout evolution and human development. Congratulations, Jasper and Marius, on receiving the EMBO fellowships for advancing brain research!