News and Events

D-BSSE wishes all members and friends Merry Christmas and a Happy and Peaceful Year 2025! At the Townhall on 28 January, we will review the year 2024 and look into the future, putting a spotlight on our quest to advance molecular and cellular systems engineering and its translation into medicine and other applications. Until then: Stay safe and all the vey best!

The recent scientific retreat for the ETH Zurich-Roche partnership, Next-gen Bioengineers, brought together a dynamic mix of researchers, scientists, programme sponsors, and distinguished guests to foster innovation and collaboration and reflect on the successful first year of the programmes. The event featured insightful presentations and chalktalks, inspirational keynotes and forward-looking plenary sessions aimed at bridging the gap between academia and industry.

In two pioneering studies published in Nature Communications, researchers unveil novel light-based technologies to control cellular behaviour with unprecedented accuracy. Led by Mustafa Khammash, head of the Control Theory and Systems Biology Lab at D-BSSE, and Matias Zurbriggen at Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, these studies showcase a great advancement in synthetic biology by using light to guide cell behaviour in engineered two- and three-dimensional tissues.

At this year’s annual ceremony, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities honoured Tanja Stadler with the Karl-Heinz Hoffmann Prize. Founded by the German entrepreneur Ulrich L. Rohde, the prize awards distinguished research in applied mathematics. Tanja’s research in computational evolution combines mathematics, computer sciences, evolution, ecology, and epidemiology. Congratulations!

Led by researchers from the Computational Evolution group of Tanja Stadler in collaboration with colleagues at the Biozentrum, University of Basel, and the US-institutions University of Washington and California Institute of Technology, a recently published Perspective in Nature Reviews Genetics explores a revolutionary concept in biology: using DNA to record the history and behaviour of individual cells over time.

Every year, up to thousand candidates apply for ETH Zurich’s Excellence Scholarship and Opportunity Programme (ESOP), between 50 and 60 applicants are awarded the prestigious grant depending on the availability of funds donated to ETH Foundation. Thomas Zimmermann from Switzerland studying Computational Biology | Bioinformatics is one of the 2024 excellent scholars. An interview.

On 27 November, the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences awarded the National Prize for Open Research Data to the Pathoplexus project led by Tanja Stadler and her group member, Software Engineer Chaoran Chen, as well as colleagues from the Biozentrum, University of Basel, and SwissTPH. Together they established the genome sequencing database for viruses of public health relevance. Congratulations!

With more than 140 million nerve cells, the retina is a highly complex visual system, where it is challenging to treat diseases. A new study by researchers from the Biophysics group of Daniel Müller and colleagues from the Roche Pharma Research and Early Development (pRED) now present an innovative therapeutic approach. The treatment involves attaching viruses to nanoparticles, which are electromagnetically guided to deploy therapeutics exactly where they are needed.

Neural organoids, tiny 3D brain-like structures, have a great potential for studying the development and diseases of the human brain. A key challenge is to relate specific brain regions or types of brain cells to organoid structures. D-BSSE researchers in partnership with scientists from Roche's Institute of Human Biology and Helmholtz Munich now present a comprehensive map of cells based on the integration of transcriptomic data across numerous methods.