D-BSSE News

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.

Barbara Treutlein receives a Synergy Grant of the European Research Council (ERC) for her research on the European project “AxoBrain” which focusses on the organisation and evolution of the brains of axolotl salamanders, extraordinary animals that can regenerate parts of their brains after severe injury. Congratulations, Barbara!

The CRISPR-​Cas gene scissors enable researchers around Barbara Treutlein and colleagues from Vienna to study the genetic and cellular causes of autism in the lab – directly on human tissue.

The past year has brought challenges on three fronts: coronavirus, climate change and links with Europe. Despite these challenges – and several others besides – ETH Zurich performed well during the year under review.

Intervening in inappropriate situations requires courage. The current Respect Campaign of ETH Zurich shows how to "put a full stop, when others don't" and thus become an active "upstander".

Write comprehensibly about research, present results compellingly and convey a confident image to the media: starting in November, ETH Zurich’s Corporate Communications will share knowledge about science communication through a series of courses and webinars. The courses offered by the Communication Academy are aimed at doctoral students, postdocs and professors at ETH Zurich.

Tanja Stadler, D-BSSE Professor of Computational Evolution, is working at the forefront in the fight against the coronavirus. She recently became head of the Swiss National COVID-​19 Science Task Force’s Data and Modelling Group, which closely studies the new variants of SARS-​CoV-2.

It might sound odd, but ETH Zurich is not just based in Zurich. The university has around 20 sites, including in northwestern Switzerland and in the canton of Graubünden, and even in Asia. They may not be the most obvious of locations, but there are good reasons behind them.

In many cells, messenger RNA molecules are not evenly distributed but tend to accumulate locally. What consequences does this have for cell functions in epithelial cells, including the mucosal cells of the digestive tract. It is also unclear how the concentration gradient of messenger RNA is maintained in the cells. Andreas Moor will investigate these questions in his ERC project in order to gain a better understanding of how cells function in healthy and diseased states. Congratulations, Andreas!

The latest university ranking from Times Higher Education (THE) puts ETH Zurich at 14th place in a worldwide comparison. It thus retains its position as the best university in Switzerland. The University of Oxford remains the world leader.

Monday, 31 August sees the start of the next stage of the ETH Master Plan for restart, which mainly concerns the Autumn Semester 2020 and will last up to the end of the year. To keep the risk of coronavirus spreading as low as possible, everyone will be required to wear a facemask as soon as they enter any ETH building. This measure already applies from 24 August.

ETH Zurich and the universities of Basel and Zurich are getting a new shared technology platform named "Swiss National Ultrahigh-​Field Solution NMR Facility" which includes a 0.8 gigahertz spectrometer to be based in Basel. This news and other updates from the ETH Executive Board are now online (Update 2020/3).

As we age, our lung tissue becomes stiffer – and this is a phenomenon that SARS-​CoV-2 may be exploiting. Caroline Uhler from D-BSSE and G. V. Shivashankar outline their hypothesis.  

To learn more about how fast SARS-​CoV-2 is spreading, the genome of the virus is key.

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.

In response to these exceptional times, we are changing our monthly ETH Podcast into a series of short items dealing with various aspects of the novel form of coronavirus and all its ramifications.

On 16 March, the Swiss Federal Council declared a national state of emergency. The entire population is being urgently called upon to minimise human contact for their own protection and the protection of others. ETH Zurich is doing everything in its power to help fight this pandemic and is therefore adapting its measures. Keep up-to-date on ETH Zurich's measures and regularly consult the FAQs on the dedicated website: https://bit.ly/3a1vA9s.

The ongoing development of ETH Zurich's organisational structure as part of the rETHink project is starting to take shape. At its first meeting of 2020, the ETH Executive Board discussed the results of the consultation and approved the changes to the ETH Organisation Ordinance.

In the last three meetings before the end of 2019, the ETH Executive Board approved CHF 17.4 million to equip the new D-BSSE building in Basel. Adding to the CHF 2.4 million provided by D-BSSE for relocation, the money will partly be used to establish a platform that will enable the production of clinical-grade therapeutics under Good Manufacturing Practice conditions.

The administrative investigation into allegations in the D-BSSE opened in July 2018 has shown that no laws were broken, although pressure was exerted on some doctoral students through employment contracts and there were errors in how some employment contracts were drawn up. ETH Zurich has taken appropriate measures and is strengthening internal controls. The department and the professor involved are working to improve the supervision of doctoral students.

As part of ETH Day celebrations on 16 November, Randall Platt will be awarded the ETH Zurich Latsis Prize. The D-BSSE professor has carried out exceptional work in the field of genome engineering – an achievement made all the more impressive given his young age.

ETH President Joël Mesot announced a restructuring of the Executive Board last June. In the Town Hall forum on 8 October, he provided an update on the status of the "rETHink” project and, together with his fellow board members, answered questions from ETH members.

Future admission arrangements for the ETH master’s programme, the composition of the ETH Zurich Research Commission for the next few years (with D-BSSE Professor Timm Schroeder as a new member), and new uses for the space under the dome of the ETH main building: these were some of the most important items on the agenda for recent meetings of the Executive Board.

At its last meeting, the ETH Executive Board decided to strengthen the ombudspersons and specialist support units, setting up more contact points and advisory services. It also discussed the feedback from the consultation process for the development of the doctoral programme, and passed a corresponding package of measures with a number of changes.

ETH Zurich has thousands of ambassadors around the world. Scattered all across the globe, the university’s graduates work in a broad range of professions and positions, regularly achieving truly remarkable things. The March issue of Globe focuses on the 150th anniversary of the ETH Alumni Association and presents a variety of individuals, all of whom - in their own personal ways - are helping to shape the future of Switzerland and the world.

Last November, news from China shook the research community. Scientist He Jiankui claimed he had edited the genomes of twin girls with the CRISPR/Cas technology. Effy Vayena, Professor of Bioethics at ETH Zurich, and Hantao Zhao, a Chinese PhD student at Disney Research and the Chair of Cognitive Science at ETH Zurich, discuss the ethical implications of this case.

ETH Zurich is the proud recipient of a new research funding instrument called “ETH+ Grants” with which ETH aims to fund major interdisciplinary research projects. In addition to this, ETH Zurich hopes to significantly reduce flight emissions. After making these decisions, the Executive Board of ETH Zurich will now take its leave for the holidays.

Professor Georg Holländer, pediatrician who holds a double professorship at the universities of Basel and Oxford, and Professor Sai Reddy from the D-BSSE will head the newly founded Botnar Research Centre for Child Health (BRCCH), Holländer as the founding Director and Reddy as Vice Director. The BRCCH will begin operations in Basel at the beginning of 2019 and will be established gradually.

The video on Master’s study that ETH Zurich launched on Monday was viewed 60,000 times on YouTube in the first 24 hours alone. And it stirred emotions – positive and, above all, negative.

Switzerland’s Federal Council has appointed Joël Mesot, Director of the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), as the new President of ETH Zurich. On 1 January 2019, Joël Mesot will take over from the current President, Lino Guzzella, who has continued to build the university’s formidable international reputation over the past four years.

Today, the University of Basel and ETH Zurich co-founded the Botnar Research Centre for Child Health (BRCCH) in Basel. They bring together top scientists and clinical researchers from a variety of disciplines in order to develop new methods and digital innovations for global use in paediatrics. The BRCCH is funded by a CHF 100 million contribution from Fondation Botnar in Basel.

The ETH Board appointed Professor Barbara Treutlein, currently Tenure Track Assistant Professor at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, as Associate Professor of Quantitative Developmental Biology. She will start on this new position at D-BSSE as of 1 January 2019. D-BSSE Professor Sai Reddy completed his Tenure Track and was appointed Associate Professor of Systems and Synthetic Immunology.