2016

The business journal Capital ranks Karsten Borgwardt as one of the “Top 40 under 40” in the category “State and Society”. Every year the journal publishes a “Top 40 under 40” ranking within different categories – the main goal is to identify Germans younger than 40 with high potential.

Michele Fiscella (Bio Engineering Laboratory) received the Swiss OphthAward in the category „Best Experimental Work“. The Swiss OphthAward is endowed with CHF 10'000 and granted to young scientists doing basic research in the field of ophthalmology.

An artificial enzyme is compartmentalised and evolved in vivo for olefin metathesis – a reaction without equivalent in nature. In a joint effort, the groups of Tom Ward (University of Basel) and Sven Panke (ETH Zurich) have developed an artificial metalloenzyme that could be a prime example for creating new non-natural metabolic pathways inside living cells.

A team led by ETH Zurich Professor Yaakov Benenson has developed a Synthetic Biology platform that senses intracellular activities of mammalian transcription factors. This platform opens the way to precise sensing of and responding to diverse cell states and activities.

ETH Professor and scientist Sai Reddy and members of his research group have engineered a hybridoma platform for reprogramming the antibody specificity of immune cells. This new platform - so-called plug-and-(dis)play hybridomas - enables researchers to easily generate new cell lines that secrete any antibody of interest.

Felix Franke (Bio Engineering Laboratory) received an Ambizione grant of CHF 583 000 for three years from the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Researchers of the ETH Zurich have shown how noise filters can be realised using biochemical reactions. This could help improve the reliability of synthetic biological circuits and play an important role in the development of new medical therapies.

Sai Reddy from the ETH Zurich Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering receives the prestigious Grand Challenges Explorations grant for innovative research in global health and development. 

Daniel Müller from the ETH Zurich Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering is newly elected EMBO member. The European Molecular Biology Organisation promotes excellence in life sciences.

Andreas Hierlemann and BEL received second Advanced Grant (3.5 Mio Euro) from the European Research Council (ERC).