BML News

Our warmest congratulations to Ankita Chavan (Jagannathani Lab) on her thesis defense and best wishes for her future.

A warm welcome to the Luo Group: Another great addition to BML and the first from the PSI - Division of Biology and Chemistry!

An article on "Cook the Science" Lecture Series organized by Thomas Michaels has appeared on the first page of the Tages Anzeiger on 30.10.2024 and on "10 vor 10" news of the Swiss television SRF on 06.12.2024.

Gea received 1MEUR to realize her research on "Antibiotic Resistance Solutions" by the Fondation Jean-Jacques et Felicia Lopez-Loreta pour excellence académique. BML congratulates her and wishes her a great success!  

Our warmest congratulations to Veera Vainio (Kroschewski Lab) and Cathy Marulli (Picotti Lab) on their thesis defenses and best wishes for their future.

BML welcomes Xiaohua Qin from the Institute for Biomechanics (D-HEST), Michelle Frei from the Laboratory from the Laboratory of Organic Chemistry (D-CHAB), and Peter Fischer from the Institute of Food, Nutrition and Health (D-HEST) who have joined BML in the past four months.

Kirsten and Thomas have secured from SNSF 1,293,110 CHF in fundings for their joint project "Problems and solutions: theory and experiments to understand why pollen tube tip-growth fails in polyploids, and how to fix it" that will run 01.01.2025 – 31.12.2028.  

The public lecture series at ETH Zurich on the science of cooking is off to a great start: The first three appointments will feature famous chefs and food producers including Rebecca Clopath (Biohof Taratsch), Jens Jung (John Baker) and Markus Stöckle (Restaurant Rosi).

On Oct. 1st BML organized a tour for the general public on the topic of condensates. The tour entintled "Die Magie lebendinger Materialien" (in German) was part of the Fall 2024 ETH Public tour series and has been very well received by the public.

BML is happy to share its research with the general public with a tour on "The magic of living materials" (in German only) that will take place on October 1st at 18:15 at the Hönggerberg Campus.

On June 13th, in occasion of the BML Day, we had a poster session with 30 contributions of great quality: it was very difficult to decide which one should be awarded a prize but at the end the public vote decided to award it to Marina Kunzi (Neurohr Group) for her poster entitled "How is Intracellular Density Regulated?".

The BML Day on 13.06 2024 with ~70 BML scientists, ~10 from ETHZ at large and 4 externals participants has seen oral and poster presentations with ~40 contributions.

Starting in Fall 2024, an innovative public lecture series will see renowned chefs and ETH Zurich's finest scientists collaborate to unravel the fascinating science behind everyday cooking.

Thomas partecipates in the show "Il Giardino di Albert" by the Radio della Svizzera Italiana (RSI) and talks about "La Fisica della Vita" (Physics of Life).

Franziska Elsässer (Picotti Lab) successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled "Proteome-wide, in situ structural analysis of dynamic protein assemblies" on February 29th. BML congratulates her and wishes her all the best for her future career!

BML extends its warmest congratulations to two of its former junior members, Dr. Miriam Linsenmeier (Arosio Lab) and Dr. Hamed Almohammadi (Mezzenga Lab), for receiving the 2023 ETHZ Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Medal!  

BML welcomes Stephanie Crane Weber, an Associate Professor in Biology at McGill University, that will be a visiting professor for the next 6 months in the Barral Lab. Steph is particularly interested in the regulation of ribosome biogenesis, structure and function of the nucleolus.

A warm welcome to the Bomblies Group: Another great addition to BML this time from the D-BIOL/Institute of Molecular Plant Biology!

Eliana Bianco (Peter Lab) successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled "Molecular mechanisms balancing ribosome biogenesis and degradation" on November 30th. BML congratulates her and wishes her all the best for her future career!

Tatjana Kleele (D-BIOL) is one of the 2023 SNSF Starting Grant awardees. Her project entitled "The role of mitochondrial biogenesis and quality control for cell fate decision and neuronal homeostasis" will run from 01.01.2024 to 31.12.2028 and has been awarded 1'681'437 CHF: well done!

The Golden Owl honours lecturers who have provided exceptional teaching and motivates them to continue with their excellent teaching. The Owl is awarded by the VSETH, ETH Zurich’s students association.  

Alexander Laitner from the Institute of Molecular Systems Biology (D-BIOL) at ETHZ joins BML. The Leitner group uses different cross-​linking methods in combination with mass spectrometric analysis to learn about the structural organization of protein and protein-​RNA complexes. Cross-​linking can provide important spatial information that can be combined with other experimental and computational methods in integrative structural biology.

Another great BML day long meeting took place on 06.10.2023 with a great line-up of invited speakers: Charlotte Aumeier (Uni. GE), Francesco Stellacci (EPFL), Sophie Martin (Uni. GE) and Guillaume Salbreux (Uni. GE).

At its meeting of 20 and 21 September 2023 and upon application of Joël Mesot, President of ETH Zurich, the ETH Board promoted Paola, a "founding member" of BML from Associate Professor as Full Professor of Molecular Systems Biology in the Department of Biology. Our warmest congratulations for a well deserved promotion!

Dr. Hamed Almohammadi, BML alumnus, and former member of the Mezzenga Lab, is the recipient a SNSF Postdoc.Mobility fellowship for his postdoctoral work in the Aizenberg Research Group at Harvard.

Dr. Sandro Meier, BML alumnus, and former member of the Barral Lab, is the recipient of both a SNSF Postdoc.Mobility and EMBO fellowship for his postdoctoral work in the Jarosz Lab at Stanford University.  

Anastasiia Kovalenko (Peter Lab) has received a Böhringer Ingelheim Fonds fellowship to carry out her PhD project entitled "Novel approaches to identify and characterize reversible protein amyloids under stress conditions".  She expects to find conserved principles regulating functional amyloid formation and disassembly, which may offer crucial insight into the mechanisms underlying neurodegenerative diseases.  

Dr. Gea Cereghetti, BML alumna, and former member of the Peter Lab, is the recipient of the SAIS (Society of the Italian Academics in Switzerland) prize for the best doctoral thesis in the fiel of Life Sciences and of the prestigious EMBO fellowship for her postdoctoral work in the Knowles Lab at the University of Cambridge.

The Dufresne lab is relocating to Cornell and we are really sad to see Eric and part of his group leaving, but we wish them all the best in their future endevours! We are also very happy that Gianna and Rob have decided to remain at ETHZ and thus in BML!

Chiara Morelli (Arosio Lab) and Dorota Pfizenmaier (Peter Lab) win the best poster prize at the Cellular Matters Conference that took place in June in Ascona.

On May 11th, Cristina Nguyen successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled "Hybrid method for studying dynamic conformational ensemble of multidomain proteins: SRSF1 tandem RRMs in the free and bound states". The whole BML congratulates her and wishes her all the best for her future endevors!

At its meeting of 8 and 9 March and upon application of Joël Mesot, President of ETH Zurich, the ETH Board promoted Paolo Arosio to Associate Professor of Biochemical Engineering in the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences.

Another fantastic addition to the BML ranks: Tatjana Kleele, an Assistant Professor, in the department of Biology/Institute of Biochemistry.

On January 20th, Sandro Meier (Barral Group) successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled "The Role of +Tip Phase Separation on Budding Yeast Microtubule Function". The whole BML congratulates him! He will soon move to the lab of Dan Jarosz in Stanford to work on the role of prions in host-microbiome interactions for his postdoc.

Gea Cereghetti (Peter Lab) has been awarded the prestigious ETH Medal for her outstanding doctoral thesis entitled "Disorder, Order, and Life: Reversible protein aggregation as a fundamental process in cell physiology".  

On December 1st, Thomas Böddeker, succesfully defended his thesis entitled "Physical interactions of membraneless organelles with the cytoskeleton". Tom will soon strat his JSPS short-term postdoc fellowship at the University of Tokyo in the lab of Prof. Sawai and will work on immune cell haptotaxis. BML wishes Tom all the best in his future endevors!

The American Physical Society (APS) has elected Eric as 2022 Fellow "for fundamental insights into the physics of diverse colloidal, polymeric, and biological systems, and the development of experimental methodologies to make, measure, and manipulate these materials."

Another great BML day long meeting took place on 30.09.2022 with a great line-up of invited speakers: Dirk Goerlich (MPI Goettingen), Daniel Duzdevich (Harvard), Sascha Quanz and Cara Magnabosco (both ETHZ) and our very own Thomas Michaels who has just joined ETHZ & BML.

Thomas will join IBC and BML starting October 1st 2022. Thomas’ research explores complex systems theory in biology using control theory, soft matter physics and computational biology. He has wide-​​ranging teaching experience and is particularly well-​​known for his books on mathematical topics.  

The whole BML congratulates Ulrike Kutay, Kartsen Weis and Helma Wennemers, for their success in securing an SNSF Advanced Grant.

The BML PIs will offer a new course on BML topics at the Master/PhD level starting Fall 2022.

Dr. Kathryn Rosowski and Nicolas Näpflin are the winner of the cross-presentation contest at the 2nd BML semi-annual meeting.

Dr. Miriam Linsenmeier successufully defended her PhD thesis on 06.04.2022!

Jan Vermant from the Department of Materials (D-MATL) and Helma Wennemers from the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences (D-CHAB) join the Board of BML together with Madhav Jagannathan and Gabriel Neurohr, both from the Depatment of Biology (D-BIOL), who became BML associates the last November.

Dr. Mikail Levasseur successfully defended his doctoral thesis on 16.03.2022!

Dr. Andreas Küffner successfully defended his doctoral thesis on 15.12.2021.

Madhav Jagannathan and Gabriel Neurohr from the Department of Biology (D-BIOL) join BML as associate members!

Dr. Gea Cereghetti successfully defended her doctoral thesis on 05.10.2021.

We are delighted to announce that Aleks, a junior BML member and postdoc in the Dufresne Lab at D-MATL, was awarded an Ambizione grant by SNSF.

A new faculty position at the Assistant Professor level is available in the Department of Biology, Institute of Biochemistry, at ETH. Application deadline: 31.10.2021.

Raffaele Mezzenga from the Laboratory for Food and Soft Materials (D-HEST) joins the Board of BML.

Karsten Weis, a BML member, has been elected 2021 EMBO Member!

Do you want to know in more detail what are the expertise available within BML? Do not miss  our Lunch Lecture Cycle (open to BML members only) where each Lab will have a chance to present itself and its capabilities.

Congratulations to Paola Picotti and Roland Riek!

Yves Barral, member and spokesperson of BML, is a co-Editor of the April themed Issue of Current Opinion in Cell Biology on "Cell Signalling".

The BML PIs meet online to discuss the present & future of the Consortium

The year is off to a good start with a joint SNF Sinergia grant to two members of the BML!

A new BML collaborative work by the Allain, Barral and Dufresne Laboratories explains how.

Paolo Arosio, a BML member, has been awarded a 2020 ERC Consolidator Grant.