Succeeding Sai Reddy, Daniel Müller is now Co-Director of the Basel Research Centre for Child Health (BRCCH). Together with Georg Holländer, also professor at D-BSSE, he will help guide the strategic orientation and initiatives of the 2018-founded BRCCH as it transitions to a digital health hub in Basel.
Researchers around Andreas Moor, head of the Systems Physiology group, have uncovered how colorectal cancer cells colonise the liver. Their findings could open up new ways to suppress this process in the future.
A distinct signalling pathway mediated by a molecule called TNF-α drives the transformation of epithelial cells into aggressive tumour cells. During cancer progression, cells activate their own TNF-α programme and become invasive. This finding could help to improve early detection and treatment of patients with cancers in skin, oesophagus, bladder, or colon, as UZH researchers in collaboration with the group of Andreas Moor state in a study published by Nature.
Intracellular processes, steered by the gene expression system, are high-dimensional and often intrinsically noisy. Advanced computational analysis of single-cell time-lapse microscopy data has the potential to unravel complex molecular networks within cells. In Nature Communications, researchers from the group of Mustafa Khammash present a novel way to decompose a large-scale network identification problem into several smaller, manageable subproblems.
At the last meeting of the ETH Executive Board, Michael Moor, currently Postdoctoral Scholar at Stanford University, USA, was appointed as Tenure Track Assistant Professor of Medical AI at the D-BSSE. A warm welcome, Michael!
Congratulations to Tanja Stadler, head of the Computational Evolution Group at D-BSSE, on being elected member 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. This year, EMBO celebrates its 60th anniversary.
How do cells with the same genetic material differentiate into diverse cell types during early embryonic development? In a study in Nature Neuroscience led by the Quantitative Developmental Biology group of Barbara Treutlein in collaboration with colleagues from the Roche Institute of Human Biology, scientists explore at single-cell level the role of histones in serving as on-/off-switches for gene expression during cell development and differentiation in brain organoids.
The City of Basel awarded this year’s Science Prize to Prisca Liberali, Head of the Molecular Systems lab at D-BSSE and group leader at the University of Basel, in recognition of her groundbreaking research on the collective properties of developmental and regenerative systems. The award, valued CHF 20’000, is presented annually to outstanding researchers based in Basel.
Myria Biosciences AG, a Basel-based pioneer in drug discovery using synthetic biology and AI originating from the D-BSSE, today announces the closing of its pre-seed round. The new funding will enable Myria to expand its scientific team, kickstart its internal drug candidate pipeline, and forge additional partnerships with leading pharmaceutical companies.
On 18 June, a new independent research institute, the Botnar Institute of Immune Engineering (BIIE) is launching in Basel, Switzerland. The BIIE is a newly founded non-profit research organisation focused on developing computational tools and immune-based translational solutions for the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease in children and adolescents.
From the Theory of Biosystems to Understanding and Engineering Cells and Organisms
Research in life sciences is central to overcoming the challenges of human health and disease, production processes in industry and their impact on the environment. The magnitude and complexity of these challenges call for a paradigm shift towards holistic, systems-based and interdisciplinary approaches. At the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE), experimental and computational biologists and engineers work together in an interdisciplinary team in order to conduct comprehensive analysis of complex processes in cells and organisms. They develop strategies and techniques for the programming and rational design of cell functions, and implement these in complex biological systems. D-BSSE research is driven by open scientific questions and unmet societal needs in biotechnology and life sciences. The mission of D-BSSE is the understanding, rational design and programming of complex biological systems from the nanoscale up to whole organisms.