D-BSSE News

Great honour for Tanja Stadler, Head of the Computational Evolution group: on 17 April, she officially received the membership certificate from Leopoldina, the German National Academy of Sciences. Leopoldina unites researchers with outstanding expertise in their respective fields, currently counting around 1'600 Academy members, being elected for their outstanding scientific achievements. Congratulations, Tanja!

As antimicrobial resistance increases globally, infections with resistant bacteria pose a major public health threat. In a new study in Nature Catalysis, a team of researchers led by Adrian Bunzel from the Bioprocess Laboratory at D-BSSE and Christopher Frohlich from the Arctic University of Norway revealed a novel mechanism for how resistances can emerge alarmingly fast. The discovery may help create antibiotics that are less prone to resistance and guide personalized health care.

Many aspects of how cells organise in a tissue are still a mystery. Researchers from the Computational Biology group of Dagmar Iber use computer modelling to unravel the cellular organisation that gives rise to tissue shape and function in development and disease. A new powerful computer programme presented in Nature Computational Science is a big leap forward. The team hopes to be able to dig much deeper into the biophysics of the fundamental building blocks of life than was possible before.

Organoids grown from human stem cells can help provide answers to important medical questions. In a partnership that looks set to profit both sides, D-BSSE professor Barbara Treutlein has teamed up with pharma giant Roche to advance research in this area.

Yaakov Benenson, Professor of Synthetic Biology, leaves the D-BSSE at the end of March to become a full-time entrepreneur at a biotech startup.

The latest issue of the GLOBE magazine of ETH Zurich has a focus on the D-BSSE and its connections and cooperations with institutions in Basel and beyond. Featuring numerous examples of cutting-edge research, the magazine reveals the department’s unique strengths in combining life sciences and data-driven engineering to target key medical challenges. A truly inspiring read!

Bioengineer Randall Platt engineers bacteria that can assess the state of our guts. It is hoped this non-​invasive technique could eventually be used to develop more effective interventions against malnutrition among children in the Global South.

On 18 April, 3-5pm, the next ‘Bench meets Bedside’ seminar of the Engineering Translational Medicine initiative will take place at the new D-BSSE building. Consult the website for the programme and the registration link (closing on 15 April).

Today, we are hosting the Personalised Health Conference with an excellent lineup of keynote speakers: Adrian Egli, Director of the UZH-Institute of Medical Microbiology, Emma Slack, ETH-Professor for Mucosal Immunology, and Jacques Fellay, EPFL-Professor of Genomics and Precision Medicine. Scientists from the D-BSSE and the EU-funded network Machine Learning Frontiers in Precision Medicine also share their latest findings and perspectives on translational research and personalised health.

The idea of ETH Zurich establishing a Department of Biosystems in Basel once seemed unachievable. Today, the department occupies a new building where the dividing lines between biology, computer science and engineering are blurred – and researchers increasingly focus on medical applications.

The International Society for Computational Biology ISCB welcomes Niko Beerenwinkel, head of the Computational Biology Group, in its 2024 class of fellows. Honouring distinguished scientists who advanced the frontiers of computational biology and bioinformatics, the jury highlighted Niko’s groundbreaking contributions to cancer research and viral genomics. Congratulations, Niko!

Developing novel antibacterial products for life-threatening infections, BioVersys announced on 5 March that in partnership with the pharma and biotech company GSK they have successfully completed the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI2) funded programme and reached a key milestone of delivering a Phase 2-ready tuberculosis clinical candidate. The funding scheme is an EU public private partnership programme.

Right from the early developmental stages to fully grown adults, brain cells continuously rely on mechanical cues to migrate to the correct locations in the body, form connections with other neurons or other cell types and communicate with them in a unique language of electrical impulses. In a new study, researchers from the Biophysics group of Daniel Müller and the Bio Engineering Lab of Andreas Hierlemann reveal how neurons sense the magnitude and temporal features of physical forces.

Neurodegenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal lobar dementia (FTLD) are difficult to study in vivo. A study led by the University of Zurich in collaboration with the Lab of Andreas Hierlemann, now identifies potential targets that may cause these diseases and their progression. The scientists developed a novel human-derived in vitro cell-culture model and methods for testing that the cells are functional, paving the way for new therapies.

Last year was a very exciting year for the D-BSSE: we moved into our new building on campus Schällemätteli in Basel, celebrated many awards, prizes and scientific highlights, launched major partnerships such as the Next-gen Bioengineers programmes with Roche and the Engineering Translational Medicine initiative - and hosted a fantastic welcome retreat. See what was going on at D-​BSSE in 2023!

In mid-March, the Personalised Health Conference will take place at D-BSSE. The programme includes two exciting days with keynote talks by Adrian Egli, Emma Slack and Jacques Fellay. On the second day the focus lies on translation, entrepreneurship and commercialisation. Registration is free of charge and ends on 10 March.

On 29 January, the two joint programmes of ETH Zurich and Roche kicked off the seminar series «Next-​Gen Lunch and Learn» providing opportunities for scientific exchange and networking for scientists and fellows from the Institute of Human Biology, pRED and D-​BSSE. On a guided tour to the D-​BSSE Single Cell and Lab Automation facilities led by Thomas Horn the young scientists learned about the many resources available for their research.

As of 1 February 2024, a new leadership runs D-BSSE: Head of Department is Sven Panke, his Deputy is Tanja Stadler. Petra Dittrich continues in her role as Director of Studies. Big thanks go to the outgoing Department Head Daniel Müller, who led the D-BSSE for the past 3 years.

The pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease is complex and not fully understood. A novel intestine-on-chip microfluidic system, developed by the Bio Engineering Laboratory of Andreas Hierlemann now enables to study in detail the physiological processes during inflammation. The system helps to elucidate the role of different immune cell types in intestinal inflammation and their specific responses to anti-inflammatory drugs and provides valuable insights for developing therapeutic strategies.

One of the biggest mysteries in historical epidemics is whether syphilis was introduced in Europe by Columbus’ first voyage to the Americas. A new international study, led by the University of Basel with contributions from the Computational Evolution group at D-BSSE, reconstructed Treponema pallidum genomes from nearly 2000-year-old remains from Brazil. The finding: treponema diseases were already present in the New World at least 1000 years before Columbus set sail.

If the body’s natural stress response gets knocked off balance, it can result in physical and mental health disorders. Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed an agent capable of selectively inhibiting this response. In Andreas Hierleman’s Bio Engineering Laboratory the electrophysiological measurements in cell systems were carried out.

Long Covid patients suffer from chronic symptoms such as fatigue or shortness of breath. As researchers at the University of Zurich and University Hospital Zurich with support from D-BSSE data analysts discovered, this is to some extent due to a part of our immune system called the complement system. The study identified a pattern in the blood proteins that will improve the diagnosis and perhaps also the targeted treatment of Long Covid.

On 12 December, Petra Dittrich and her group invited the public to learn about  microchips and their great use for medical and diagnostic applications or for biological analyses. After a short introduction on the principles of ‘lab-on-a-chip’ technologies, the visitors to the fully booked tour saw some of the labs from inside and had the opportunity to discuss open questions with the young scientists.

Upon application of the President of ETH Zürich, the ETH Board appointed Basile Wicky, currently Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA, as Tenure Track Assistant Professor of Biomolecular Design at D-BSSE, starting this position in June 2024. Basile’s research focuses on computational protein design and synthetic biology for programming biomolecular and cellular systems.

By communicating with one another, cells collectively drive biological functions. The direct neighbourhood of a cell influences its behaviour, gene expression and the cellular crosstalk. The development of diseases is often the consequence of disrupted cell-cell communications. In a study published by Nature Communications, researchers from the Systems Physiology lab of Andreas Moor, developed a method to characterise microenvironments at single-cell resolution.

ETH spin-​off Engimmune Therapeutics, a D-BSSE start-up from the Reddy group, has developed technologies to engineer T-​cell receptors (TCRs) which are part of immune cells. Guided by machine learning, the technologies enable the development of TCR drugs that specifically target solid tumours. This emerging therapeutic approach is scalable and less costly than other modalities such as cell therapies.

Pregnancy and motherhood lead to brain remodeling. Researchers at the Biozentrum, University of Basel, and the Systems Physiology Lab of Andreas Moor, have now discovered in experiments with mice that distinct pools of stem cells in the adult brain are turned on during pregnancy. They give rise to specific types of olfactory bulb neurons, the team reports in the journal Science.

On 12 December, at 6:15 PM, the public is invited to learn about microchips and their great use for medical and diagnostic applications or for biological analyses. After a short introduction by Professor Petra Dittrich you will go into the labs and discuss with young scientists their research and experimental set ups. Please register for this tour (in German)!

The ETH Golden Owl honours lecturers distinguished by exceptional teaching and motivates them to continue with their excellent teaching. The Owl is warded by ETH Zurich’s student association. This year, the Owl was awarded to Andreas Moor, Professor of Systems Physiology at D-BSSE. Congratulations!

Memo Therapeutics, a late-stage biotech company specialised in the development of therapeutic antibodies, has announced the successful closure of a CHF 25 million Series C financing round. The raised capital will be instrumental to complete the Phase 2 clinical development of the antibody AntiBKV, designed to combat BK polyomavirus infections in kidney transplant recipients. Founded in 2012, Memo Therapeutics originated from the Bioprocess lab of Sven Panke.

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!

On 25 October, researchers from the D-BSSE, the University of Basel, the University Hospital and the University Children’s Hospital Basel met at the new ETH-building on Schällemätteli campus to mark the kickoff of a joint seminar series dedicated to translational projects and clinical applications. Spearheading the roll-out of the Engineering Translational Medicine research hub, this first event brought together experts from bench and bedside to spark innovative approaches and collaborations.

Daniel Müller, Head of the Biophysics group, was offered the prestigious Humboldt professorship. Learn about his motivation to decline this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and the many reasons why it was a clear decision for him to stay at the D-BSSE and ETH Zurich.

With the Dandelion Award, the ETH AI Center, ETH Entrepreneurship, the ETH Entrepreneur Club and Talent Kick recognise faculty members who are most entrepreneurial-friendly at ETH departments. Nominated by ETH students, PhDs and Post-Docs, Sven Panke receives the prize in 2023 at the D-BSSE. Well deserved: since 2011, the spinoff companies FGen, Memo Therapeutics, Omne Possibile, and Myria Biosciences originated from his Bioprocess lab. Congratulations, Sven!

Only indigo gives denim its distinct blue colour. The dye is globally produced in quantities of up to 80,000 tonnes per year. However, its chemical production relies on fossil fuels, and some of the by-products are extremely toxic. After three years of research, scientists in Sven Panke's Bioprocess Lab have successfully developed a fermentation process for the synthesis of bio-indigo from renewable feedstock. The quality of this dye allows for direct application in industrial fibre staining.

Professors Tanja Stadler and Barbara Treutlein awarded the Cloëtta Jubilee Prize for their outstanding achievements in biomedical and developmental biology research.

The new laboratory and research building in Basel has been awarded the "Iconic Awrad 2023" in the category "Innovative Architecture - Public / Culture / Education". The BSS building is the new home for the ETH Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering.

Researchers around Randall Platt have developed a method that lets them genetically modify each cell differently in animals. This allows them to study in a single experiment what used to require many animal experiments. Using the new method, the researchers have discovered genes that are relevant for a severe rare genetic disorder.

A warm welcome to our 67 new Master students at D-​BSSE in Basel, enrolled in our Biotechnology and Computational Biology & Bioinformatics Master-​level programmes. Have a great start!!!

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 eye-catching image in the current issue of GLOBE was taken by the group of Quantitative Developmental Biology group of Barbara Treutlein. It shows a thin section of retinal tissue, stained with fluorescent dyes and imaged using fluorescent microscopy. This process was developed to image 3D issue structures cultivated in the lab. A comprehensive atlas now combines all images from organoids to improve our understanding of tissue development and degeneration.

Markus Jeschek, Professor of Synthetic Microbiology at the University of Regensburg, Germany, and alumnus of Sven Panke’s Bioprocess lab, receives a prestigious Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). In their project BiosenSAI, Jeschek and his team will build synthetic biosensors which help detect new microbes for the sustainable bioproduction of compounds with valuable properties for the chemical and pharmaceutical industry. Congratulations!

Honouring significant advances in the 3Rs Principle, i.e. replacement, reduction, and refinement of animal experimentation, the Swiss 3R Competence Centre is granting this year’s Young Investigator Award to Wei Wei, PhD candidate in the lab of Andreas Hierlemann. In his studies, Wei is creating a 3D model of the brain’s protective wall, the blood-brain-barrier, allowing him to investigate physiological processes at this wall. Big congrats, Wei!

Switzerland’s largest science festival Scientifica is dedicated to the theme “What holds the world together”. Jointly organised by ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich, D-BSSE is contributing to the exciting programme with four activities including thematic booths, a workshop for teenagers and a science café. Scientifica takes place on 2-3 September in Zurich.

Fondation Botnar is donating an additional CHF 50 million to the University of Basel and ETH Zurich to expand the activities of the joint Botnar Research Centre for Child Health (BRCCH). This support will allow to create six new professorships with a research focus on paediatric digital health. Two Botnar-funded professors will be located at D-BSSE in Basel.

"We will rock you": Researchers around Martin Fussenegger, head of the D-BSSE Biotechnology and Bioengineering group, are developing a gene switch that triggers insulin release in designer cells by playing certain rock and pop songs.

Cell atlases chart the molecular information of cells including its genetic make-up and the molecular changes along the cell’s lifespan. This information deepens our understanding of cell-to-tissue and disease development. In a Science Perspective article, Barbara Treutlein and colleagues at Roche’s Institute of Human Biology now question “What is a cell type?”, and call for future research into charting perturbations which alternate the cell’s molecular phenotype.

Variations in the cellular DNA occur frequently and are passed on to descending cells, thereby tracking the evolutionary history of cell populations. In a study published in Cell Genomics, researchers from the Computational Biology group of Niko Beerenwinkel utilized DNA variations to investigate the evolutionary rates in single cells from healthy and cancer tissues. They found that most cancer cells vary in their evolution rate, and also many healthy tissues show evidence for varying rates.

Holding their annual networking event in our new home, on 16 August we were welcoming the councillors of the cantons Basel City and Basellandschaft, their administrations, members of federal bodies, and representatives of academic partners, in total more than 90 guests.

Mustafa Khammash receives the prestigious Advanced Grant currently awarded by the Swiss National Science Foundation rather than the European Research Council for his project "Theory and Design of Advanced Genetically Engineered Control Systems".

The new BSS research building in Basel and the GLC in the centre of Zurich are now ready for occupation. The construction work took longer than planned, but the time has finally come: staff from the BSSE, HEST and ITET departments have begun to move in.

The University of Basel is presenting this year’s Teaching Excellence Award to Michael Nash, Professor of Molecular Engineering of Synthetic Systems at the Department of Chemistry and the D-BSSE. The jury honoured in particular his “patience, and open, relaxed manner allowing students to approach him on equal footing and giving them the opportunity to share their own thinking processes, helping them to get their heads around the lecture material more quickly”. Congratulations, Michael!

ETH Zurich and Roche are joining forces to advance the development of new methods that facilitate the search for medicines. By launching two programmes in Basel for doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers, D-BSSE together with Roche's IHB and pRED will train specialists for the biomedical challenges of our time.

A team of researchers from Stanford University, CA, USA, together with researchers from the Bio Engineering Lab, led by Andreas Hierlemann, developed a high-density electrode array and connector on an ultra-conformable thin-film substrate, which self-assembles onto silicon microelectrode arrays and enables electrocorticogram recordings of extracellular neuronal activity with several thousand channels at micrometer resolution. The device and system was tested with brains of epilectic mice.

On 20 June, the NCCR Molecular Systems Engineering, co-directed by the University of Basel and ETH Zurich, organised a symposium at the Embassy of Switzerland to the United Kingdom. Leading scientists from the UK and Switzerland presented their research in scientific keynotes which were complemented by short showcase presentations of young scientists from both countries. The symposium ended with a panel about the ehical challenges of engineering life sciences.

In a new study in Nature Communications, researchers around Joerg Stelling from the Computational Systems Biology group and Yolanda Schaerli, University of Lausanne, shed light on the link between the genetic makeup (genotype) and the behaviour (phenotype) of gene regulatory networks. Using experimental synthetic biology and approx. 4 million mathematical models, they demonstrate large genotype networks, i.e., connected genotypes with the same phenotype, that can facilitate evolution.

On 8 and 9 June, some 50 doctoral students from D-BSSE celebrated their housewarming at BSS with an exciting programme around science communication, career development, mentorship and supervision at ETH Zurich, and plenty of social and networking events. A highlight was the so called Night Science workshop on the creative side of the scientific process.

Signaling molecules called morphogens guide the formation of patterns in tissues. Their concentration forms gradients along the tissue to determine cell fate. How this mechanism can be robust towards biological noise and what the role of cell size is in pattern formation has long remained unclear. Using mathematical modelling, Jan Adelmann from the Computational Biology group of Dagmar Iber, shed new light on these two key aspects of developmental biology in his Master’s thesis.

On 26 May, the Graduation Ceremony was held as the very first event in our new home in Basel. 22 Biotechnology and 18 Computational Biology & Bioinformatics graduates attended the celebration together with their family and friends, in total some 170 guests, enjoying the sneak peek into the new building and filling the atrium with their laughters and smiles. Huge congrats to our graduates and best of success for a bright future!

Every day, millions of cells die in our body. Other than generally assumed, cells do not simply burst at the end of their lives but rather, a specific protein serves as a breaking point for cell membrane rupture. Researchers led by Sebastian Hiller at the Biozentrum, University of Basel, in collaboration with D-BSSE group leader Daniel Müller have now been able to elucidate the exact mechanism at the atomic level.

Sarah Nadeau from Tanja Stadler’s group and Joaquin Gutierrez from the lab of Mustafa Khammash receive the ETH medal for their excellent doctoral theses on advancing pathogen phylogenies for public health and developing a fully automated platform for co-culturing bacterial communities, respectively. Big congrats!

Researchers from Basel and Zurich are creating a high-​resolution atlas that depicts the development of the human retina. One technique they use is a new method that allows them to visualise more than 50 proteins simultaneously.

As one of 435 entries submitted to the 2023 SNSF Scientific Image Competition, the video of Roman Vetter was awarded the jury distinction. This stunning videos simulates tissue growth of a malignant tumour growing from a single cell to a million cells. Congratulations, Roman!

Whilst facing extraordinary challenges at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Swiss SARS-CoV-2 sequencing consortium (S3C) was established at D-BSSE. With over 76’000 SARS-CoV-2 genomes sequenced between 2020 and the end of 2022 and made available in open-data archives, the effort led by Tanja Stadler informed science-based decision making – and will facilitate pathogen surveillance in the times to come.

The ETH Zurich annual report for 2022 is out! For the first time it has been published in digital form, providing an interactive tour through the different areas of the university, as well as describing how ETH functions and the contribution it makes to Swiss society.

“Enhancing bispecific antibody therapies with healthy donor T-cells”: This groundbreaking work of Systems Immunology Lab head Sai Reddy and his team members Edo Kapetanovic, Rodrigo Vazquez-Lombardi and Cédric Weber had been nominated for the 2022 Spark Award. ETH Zurich gives this award to the most promising inventions that were filed as patents during the previous year. Reddy is a serial entrepreneur at D-BSSE.

A fuel cell under the skin that converts blood sugar from the body into electrical energy sounds like science fiction. Yet it works perfectly, as a D-BSSE research team led by Martin Fussenegger, Professor of Biotechnology and Bioengineering, has shown.

D-BSSE researchers shed new light on gene regulation and expression in bacteria. Applying a novel method for high-throughput sequence-function mapping, Simon Höllerer and Markus Jeschek from the Bioprocess lab characterised over 1.2 million mRNA variants in Escherichia coli. Their key findings: a common assumption on how gene expression works has been disproved. Additionally, the researchers found experimental evidence for a postulated mechanism in gene expression.

Cancer patients might one day benefit from being administered immune cells from healthy donors. But as things stand, receiving donor cells can cause severe or even fatal immune reactions. A researcher from the Synthetic Immunology lab of Sai Reddy has now developed a technology that avoids these.

A new super-resolution microscope and first of its kind in Switzerland, the MINFLUX microscope, is now installed at the Single Cell Facility (SCF). Based on single-molecule localisation, this high-precision microscope is now operational and available for all users of the SCF.

Surface proteins on yeast cells play a key role in biomedical applications. The process involves producing modified proteins on the yeast surface and selecting cells that exhibit favourable behaviour, such as binding to a target molecule. A study in ACS Synthetic Biology led by researchers around Michael Nash now presents a new method that equips yeast cells with specific genes that control the amount of protein produced on the cell surface.

Up to now, the use of models to research the barrier that separates the circulatory from the nervous system has proven to be either limited or extremely complicated. Researchers from the group of Andreas Hierlemann have developed a more realistic model that can also be used to better explore new treatments for brain tumours.

Barbara Treutlein, Head of the Quantitative Developmental Biology Lab, will be awarded the Friedrich Miescher Award 2023. The prize is Switzerland’s highest distinction for scientists under 40 working in the field of biochemistry.

A large-scale study led by researchers from the group of Tanja Stadler shows the extent to which measures taken at the start of the pandemic in 2020 slowed the spread of the virus in the population. The quantitative analysis used a representative subset of over 11’000 sequenced coronavirus genomes from COVID19 patients in Switzerland and compared viral introductions to Switzerland at the point of border closures and beyond with a scenario where certain public health measures were absent.

Review of a busy year full of highlights from the ETH-Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering. See what was going on at D-BSSE in 2022!

Although survival rates of pediatric leukaemia patients have increased over the past decades, there is still a demand for effective and tailored treatments of certain types of leukaemia in high-risk patients. A new microphysiological drug-testing platform developed by Furkan Gökce and colleagues from the Hierlemann lab now enables the controlled interaction of potential drug candidates with cancer cells, human bone marrow cells and liver micro tissues within the same microfluidic system.

BioVersys, a 2010-founded privately owned Swiss pharmaceutical company originating from the Biotechnology lab of Martin Fussenegger, extends its Series C investment round to CHF 32.6 million, which will be used to support the clinical development of BV100, a potential breakthrough hospital antibiotic targeting the most drug-resistant bacterial pathogen,Acinetobacter baumannii, which will soon be tested for the first time in a Phase 2 clinical trial.

Eosinophils are a type of white blood cells involved in the control of intestinal inflammation. Yet, eosinophils have been difficult to study and so far have remained invisible to single-cell transcriptomics, a tool used to construct tissue atlases in health and disease. A Nature study co-led by Costanza Borrelli from the Moor lab and colleagues at the University of Zurich, now provides novel insights into the biology of this cell type.

D-BSSE wishes all members and friends Merry Christmas and a very Happy and Peaceful Year 2023! At the Townhall on 31 January, 11 AM, we will review the year 2022 and look into the future, putting a spotlight on the new D-BSSE leadership, the finalisation of our new building BSS and updates from our many initiatives. Until then: stay safe and all the best!

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”.

Three research images produced by D-BSSE scientists that had turned into artwork were first exhibited and then sold at an auction at Kunsthalle Zürich to support needs-based scholarships for ETH students. The event was organised by the company headcount in collaboration with the ETH AI Centre and ETH Foundation.

A postdoctoral researcher starting his own group, a pioneer in academic-industry collaboration, and a startup entrepreneur: they all share the vision of finding their personal career paths. Interviews with three members of the Bioprocess group led by Sven Panke on their career goals, personal interests and their needs to become independent.

Networking and mentoring clearly represent the most important door-openers in young scientists’ careers. The group around Andreas Hierlemann entertains a bi-annual reunion of current lab members with lab alumni, international guests and previous lab members, who have become entrepreneurs. At their latest meeting on 19 November, some 85 scientists gathered and discussed ‘Emerging Topics in Science’ at D-BSSE premises. 

In order to support the cantons and the Confederation with scientific expertise even after the dissolution of the Swiss National Covid-19 Science Task Force, a new scientific advisory body for the Covid-19 pandemic will be established. The advisory body is chaired by Tanja Stadler, ETH-professor at D-BSSE, and comprises 14 members from different institutions and disciplines. The mandate runs provisionally until the end of June 2023.

Congratulations to Andreas Moor, head of the Systems Physiology Lab at D-​BSSE, on being elected member of the Young Investigator Programme of the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO). The growing EMBO network promotes excellence in life sciences and shapes their direction in research, fosters the careers of young scientists and strengthens the research communities in Europe and beyond.

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 Roman Vetter at D-BSSE, Lecturer and Senior Research Associate in the Computational Biology lab. Congratulations, Roman!

Cellular immunotherapies against cancer have made great progress in recent years using engineered T-cells with synthetic protein receptors called chimeric antigen receptors (CARs). Researchers from Sai Reddy’s lab and colleagues at the University Hospital Basel now present a technology platform to speed up the discovery of CAR variants with enhanced tumour killing properties and use the genetic construction plan for engineering next-generation CAR T cells.

Organisms and tissues develop through rounds of cell division, differentiation and death. Sophie Seidel and Tanja Stadler from the Computational Evolution group devised a new computational tool that quantifies these developmental processes from genetic footprints in single cells. Their work may contribute to a deeper understanding of development of model organisms and tissues, which in turn, can advance our insights into human development.

On the current list of Highly Cited Researchers, 21 have a connection to ETH Zurich. Tanja Stadler, Professor of Computational Evolution at D-BSSE, and three other ETH researchers appear on this list for the first time.

To preserve their internal states, living systems often need to fully adapt to disturbances from their environment. This robust perfect adaptation (RPA) is ubiquitous in biology. In PNAS, Ankit Gupta and Mustafa Khammash from the Control Theory and Systems Biology lab characterise the universal internal network structures that control maximal RPA. Understanding these mechanisms is essential for a deeper understanding of biological regulation and for designing novel synthetic regulatory circuits.

In a new study in Science Translational Medicine, members of Tanja Stadler's group analysed thousands of SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences to reconstruct likely paths of viral transmission into and within Switzerland. Their results show that changes in transmission patterns can be associated with major public health measures. This large-scale analysis was enabled by a national genome sequencing effort initiated by Tanja's group as well as efforts from a broad collaboration of Swiss COVID researchers.

With the Dandelion Entrepreneurship Award, the ETH Entrepreneur Club and ETH AI Center recognise faculty members who “encourage talented people to take a leap into the market”. Nominated by ETH students, PhDs and Post- Docs, Andreas Hierlemann receives the prize in 2022 in the D-BSSE. Well deserved: since 2008, the spinoff companies Zurich Instruments, InSphero, Shift Cryptosecurity, Validity Labs, and Maxwell Biosystems originated from his Bio Engineering lab. Congratulations, Andreas!

On 22 November, the Bioprocess lab is opening its doors, introducing the public to the great potentials of synthetic biology. This one-hour lab visit will be held in German, registration is required!

The Cleanroom is one of the core scientific facilities at D-BSSE. Once the Cleanroom has moved into BSS, the department’s new home, its size will have tripled, providing large-enough spaces and instruments to users from academic and industrial partners who fabricate devices at micro- and nanometre scales. Interview with Andreas Hierlemann, Liaison person for the Cleanroom Facility.

Polymyxins are considered last-resort antibiotics which are still effective against multi-drug resistant pathogens. In a study published by Nature Communications, Selen Manioglu and colleagues from the Biophysics group and the Biozentrum, University of Basel, now describe their mechanistic effect at the molecular level. Using atomic force microscopy imaging, the results show that Polymyxins bond to membrane lipids and the newly formed crystalline structure weakens the membrane until it bursts.

Researchers from the group of Barbara Treutlein are growing human brain-​like tissue from stem cells and are then mapping the cell types that occur in different brain regions and the genes that regulate their development.

Pharmaceutical compounds may have cardiotoxic properties, triggering potentially life-threatening arrhythmias. To investigate the effects of drugs on heart muscle cells derived from human stem cells, researchers around Andreas Hierlemann developed an electrophysiological technique for high-density microelectrode arrays, which enables to record intracellular-like signals. This technique may be routinely used in in vitro platforms for cardiotoxicity screening.

A study published by the Synthetic Immunology group of Sai Reddy presents a novel experimental and computational platform for engineering T-cell receptors. This work was led by Rodrigo Vazquez-Lombardi during his time as a postdoc at D-BSSE and became the foundational technology for the spinoff company Engimmune Therapeutics. Rodrigo has transitioned to the Chief Scientific Officer of Engimmune, which is applying the platform for engineering T cell receptors for cancer immunotherapy.

Live-cell imaging is the primary tool to study cell growth, inheritance and dynamic processes across generations at single-cell level. Applications such as linking the genotype with a desired phenotype by imaging-based screenings still have a high error rate for separating and tracking individual cells. A new method developed by researchers from the group of Joerg Stelling now introduces the cell region fingerprint tracker based on key parameters drawn from different types of microscopy images.

Scientists have a duty to initiate a dialogue with the public on cellular engineering, says Daniel Müller. The discussion must be held now – before complex engineered cellular systems are ready for widespread use in humans.