News and Events

On 22 January, the next 'Bench meets Bedside' seminar organised by the Engineering Translational Medicine (ETM) initiative will take place on Campus Schällemätteli. The event will feature inspiring PI talks by Anne-Katrin Pröbstel (Department of Biomedicine, UniBas), Philippe Cattin (Department of Biomedical Engineering, UniBas) and Joerg Stelling (D-BSSE, ETH Zurich). ETM aims at building a platform for researchers and clinicians to connect and collaborate.

On 9 February, the next public seminar organised by the ETH Zürich - Roche partnership Next-gen Bioengineers will take place at ETH Basel premises. Johanna Joyce, Professor of Oncology at the University of Lausanne and  Member of the international Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Switzerland, will talk about how communication between cancer cells and diverse cell types in the tumour microenvironment regulate disease progression and the response to therapeutic intervention.

D-BSSE wishes all members and friends a joyful holiday season and a wonderful start to a happy and successful year 2026! At the Townhall on 27 January, we will review the year 2025 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 very best!

Scientists from the Bioanalytics group led by Petra Dittrich have introduced a groundbreaking approach for writing information inside liquids – an advance that could reshape data storage, materials design, and biochemical sensing. Published this week in Advanced Materials, the study presents “liquid-in-liquid printing,” a technique that arranges thousands of microscale droplets into precisely patterned, information-rich arrays.

Andreas Moor, head of the Systems Physiology lab, and Randall Platt, head of the Biological Engineering Lab, receive ERC Consolidator Grants for their research on cellular networks in colorectal cancer and on protein-engineering technologies, respectively. Congratulations!

A new paper published in Nature Neuroscience shows that the human brain may develop fundamental patterns of activity long before it receives any external input. Research – led by scientists from the University of Santa Cruz in California in a collaboration with the Hierlemann lab – demonstrates that developing brain organoids, i.e. tiny, lab-grown models of the human brain, naturally generate structured sequences of neuronal firing that closely resemble patterns seen in brains of newborn mice.

The Executive Board of ETH Zurich communicates today the promotion of Andreas Moor, currently Tenure Track Assistant Professor at D-BSSE, to Associate Professor of Systems Physiology. Big contrats, Andreas!

On 25 November, the Computational Biology lab of Niko Beerenwinkel together with the Genomics Facility Basel opened their doors to the public to share insights on the enormous molecular diversity between tumour cells and the potential of DNA sequencing for personalised treatments in cancer therapy. After a short introduction by Niko and three of his doctoral students, Christian Beisel invited the visitors to learn about the workflow and the data analyses in the in-house sequencing labs. 

The Golden Owl honours lecturers distinguished by exceptional teaching and motivates them to continue with their excellent teaching. The Owl is awarded by ETH Zurich’s student association. This year, the Owl was awarded to Dr Zhisong He, Senior Researcher and Lecturer at the Quantitative Developmental Biology lab of Barbara Treutlein. Zhisong teaches Systems Genomics. Congratulations, Zhisong!