D-CHAB News

Dr. Nathalie M. Grob, currently Postdoctoral Researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has been appointed as Assistant Professor of Peptide-based Drug Discovery. Nathalie M. Grob’s research involves developing efficient methods of discovering new, peptide-based medications. Her teaching and research have a particular focus on pathologies that principally affect women and have been little studied to date. She was awarded an SNSF Starting Grant for her work.

To celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science in February, D-CHAB, in partnership with EducETH and WiNS, invited interested schoolgirls to look behind the scenes of the department on February 14, 2024. Here is a review of an afternoon full of bright, colorful, sustainable, and applied chemistry, from nanocrystals to artificial hearts.

Dr. Erich Meister has been at ETH Zurich for 40 years. For 35 of those, he has successfully further developed the PC practical course and always put a lot of energy into teaching – whether to train students or curious kids at open lab days. Now he is retiring and handing over the reins to Dr. Takuya Segawa. In an interview with Nonô Saramago (editor of Exsikkator), he talks about his times at ETH, chances, programming languages, calligraphy and paradise. We say thank you with a video. 

Professor Helma Wennemers has been teaching at D-CHAB for twelve years with unwavering enthusiasm – be it specialized lectures or introductory lectures in organic chemistry. For her performance, the ETH Zurich Student Association (VSETH) has honored her with the Golden Owl 2023. In this interview, she speaks about her experiences and role models and reveals the value of traditional teaching methods.

As natural catalysts, enzymes are highly efficient at speeding up complex chemical reactions. Victor Mougel and his team aim to mimic this ability. They are the first to synthesize a complete series of iron-sulfur cubane redox clusters with all oxidation states, revealing how the clusters’ environment affects redox potential and reactivity. They also proved the clusters' effectiveness in developing efficient CO₂ reduction catalysts. Mougel receives the Ruzicka Prize 2023 on Nov. 23.

The Excellence Scholarship & Opportunity Program (ESOP) of ETH Zurich promotes outstanding students every year. They are among the best and receive support from the donors of ETH Foundation for their Master's studies so that they can fully concentrate on education and research. In the D-​CHAB this year, five students received the scholarship. Get to know Magdalena Lederbauer, Valerie Pascetta, Ramon Hügli, Jasmin Frei und Lisa Sherman.

On Oct 26, Prof. Michele Parrinello's farewell lecture took place in the Auditorium Maximum at ETH Zurich. Parinello talked about the "Physics of Catalysis". In case you missed this event, watch the video recording here.

The International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO) has ended after an exciting event. Talented chemists from 89 countries showcased their skills and became acquainted not only with Switzerland but also with ETH Zurich and the D-CHAB. A review with many pictures.

Have you ever wondered what lies under your skin? How can you examine thousands of cells? What does a catalyst look like, and can aerosols be made visible? “The Art of Chemistry” exhibition – visitable at ETH’s Hönggerberg campus (HCI / H-floor) and online, curated by Julia Ecker and Oliver Renn (PR D-CHAB) – approaches science in a different way. 13 large pictures provide insights into the D-CHAB’s research and illustrate that chemistry is not only exciting, but beautiful – even truly artistic.

Researchers from ETH Zurich, led by Hans-Jakob Wörner, and from the University of Geneva have developed a new method that allows them to observe chemical reactions taking place in liquids at extremely high temporal resolution. The new insights further our understanding of how life on Earth might have begun.

Our new video offers a journey through the department, showcasing the D-CHAB, its members, and chemistry itself. Putting all the exciting things that happen daily at D-CHAB into such a short video was challenging though. Julia Ecker (PR D-CHAB, Director of the video) reveals some insights about the making of this film and presents the final video here. Check it out, share & enjoy!

Researchers led by Professor Ruth Signorell have managed to produce slow electrons in a solution. In the future, such electrons could help make certain chemical reactions more efficient.

Computer simulations have helped researchers led by Sereina Riniker (LPC) understand in detail how pharmaceutically active substances cross cell membranes. These findings can now be used to discover new drug candidates more efficiently.

The ETH Board appointed 14 professors and awarded the title of professor five times. Among them are Paolo Arosio, currently Tenure Track Assistant Professor at ETH Zurich, now apoointed as Associate Professor of Biochemical Engineering, and Hans Jakob Wörner, currently Associate Professor at ETH Zurich, as Full Professor of Physical Chemistry. 

Women have often had a hard time in the natural sciences, but times are changing. Associations like the Society for Women in Natural Sciences at D-CHAB and D-BIOL are contributing significantly to this change. Their recipe for success is to include all genders, raise awareness, strengthen networks, and have fun doing it. On today's International Day of Women and Girls in Science, Seraphine Zhang and Valentina Gasser talk about personal experiences, upcoming challenges, and big plans for WiNS.

The NIBR Global Scholars Program (NGSP) is a competitive program designed for innovators from invited institutions to gain funding for breakthrough science not covered by traditional grant support. NIBR supports projects focused on novel science with the objective of being translated to drug discovery and/or clinical research. Sereina Riniker (LPC) is a recipient of the NGSP 2022 and will receive up to 1 mil USD funding over 3 years along with expertise from NIBR scientific collaborators.

Plastics or artificial polymers have become an indispensable part of our everyday lives, and yet they cause big problems today. Athina Anastasaki and her team have discovered how polymer construction can be precisely controlled and how they can be recycled efficiently - findings that are also important for industry. For this, Athina Anastasaki (D-MATL) will receive the Ruzicka Prize 2022 on December 19. Here she provides insights into the exciting field of polymer chemistry. 

Every year, the Excellence Scholarship & Opportunity Program (ESOP) at ETH Zurich supports outstanding students who are among the best in their year. They receive financial support for their Master's studies so that they can concentrate fully on education and research. In 2022, four students in D-CHAB managed to convince the commission: Sally Liu, Vincent Wirth, Anna Weinfurter, and Gian-Luca Lötscher. Get to know them in this article.

Drug design is time-​consuming and expensive. Identifying a promising starting molecule – a ligand – is key in the design process. A new characterisation method based on NMR spectroscopy probes the interaction of the ligand with its intended target quickly and reliably.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a method that enables time-​resolved measurements of electron motion in water clusters lasting only a few attoseconds. The technique can be used for more detailed studies of water as well as faster electronics.

In science, it is better to work together than alone and sometimes such collaborations lead to a true revolution. This is what happened in the 1970s, when the Institute of Physical Chemistry at ETH Zurich, together with Bruker, ushered in a new era of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, significantly expanding the possibilities for chemical analyses in the materials and life sciences. Now, SCNAT honored both sites with the Chemical Landmark. A historical journey.

Two historic sites of the Bruker company and ETH Zurich were honored by the Swiss Academy of Sciences on July 1, 2022.

Methanol, produced from carbon dioxide in the air, can be used to make carbon neutral fuels. But to do this, the mechanism by which methanol is turned into liquid hydrocarbons must be better understood so that the catalytic process can be optimised. Now, using sophisticated analytical techniques, researchers from ETH Zürich and Paul Scherrer Institute have gained unprecedented insight into this complex mechanism.

The Department of Mathematics, the Kangaroo Switzerland Association, ETH Zurich and the local department of 500 Women Scientists Zurich want to inspire girls for science and honor their achievements with the event "Kangaroo goes Science". The event takes place today, on June 9, 2022. D-CHAB is also present with a lab tour (Zenobi Group) and provided videos about some of our labs. 

The Chemistry Travel Award of SCNAT Chemistry and Swiss Chemical Society honors excellent doctoral students and supports their participation in an international conference. This year, 11 talented PhDs from D-CHAB are among the winners. 

The Swiss Chemical Society is launching an event series starting on May 13, 2022. The events – which take place once or twice a year at swiss universities – enable students and PhDs to get an insight into process chemistry. They offer a good chance to learn more about the challenges in process chemistry, the differences between laboratory work and chemical production, and to get in touch with process chemists from industry in order to expand its own network. 

Daniel Richter, Edgars Lakis and Jörn Piel from the D-BIOL received this year's Spark Award for their project "Method for site-​​​selective protein functionalization". Among the top 5 finalists, however, were also teams from D-CHAB, D-MAVT, D-MATL and D-INFK. Watch all project videos here.

Aerosols in the atmosphere react to incident sunlight. This light is amplified in the interior of the aerosol droplets and particles, accelerating reactions. ETH researchers around Pablo Corral Arroyo and Prof. Ruth Signorell (LPC) have now been able to demonstrate and quantify this effect and recommend factoring it into future climate models.

Until now, it took up to an hour to obtain usable results when using NMR to study the interactions of molecules, and even then, the results were not always clear enough for interpretation. Roland Riek, Felix Torres and Matthias Bütikofer from the LPC have developed a method that delivers NMR results in seconds, provides an improved measurement signal, and saves material costs. Now, they have been nominated for the Spark Award 2022 and have big plans.

Professor Vincent Racaniello (Columbia University) has not only made seminal discoveries in virology, he was also co-author of a very successful textbook and, as a well-known YouTuber, is now setting the bars for high-quality online science communication. As lecturer at the Richard R. Ernst Lecture 2022 on May 16, he will talk about the "Inordinate fondness for viruses" and discuss in a panel what makes good science communication, especially in a pandemic.

Ruth Signorell, Professor of Physical Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences is among this year's recipients of the Doron Prize. She is receiving the award for her pioneering work in the field of "Fundamental Aerosol Science." The prize, endowed with CHF 100,000, has been awarded annually since 1986 to individuals or institutions for their achievements in the fields of science, culture, and public welfare.

Science is a team effort, also at the D-CHAB at ETH Zurich. Since 2009, there have been anually more than 1800 collaborations with partners from around 48 countries, as illustrated by the new interactive map on the D-CHAB website. But what do collaborations mean for research and research success? A look at what holds the research world together.

Many scientific experiments require highly precise time measurements with the help of a clearly defined frequency. Now, researchers at ETH Zurich, the University of Basel, the Swiss Federal Institute of Metrology (METAS) and the SWITCH Foundation have demonstrated a new approach, that allows the direct comparison of frequency measurements in the lab with the atomic clock in Bern, Switzerland. Frédéric Merkt (LPC) and his group are also involved in this project.

ETH Zurich mourns the death of Richard Ernst, ETH professor emeritus and Nobel laureate. Alexander Wokaun did his doctorate under him and remembers him - a personal obituary.  

The 1991 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry, ETH Professor Emeritus Richard Ernst, has died at the age of 87. ETH Zurich mourns the loss of a man with an extremely broad range of interests and commitments.

The European Patent Office (EPO) announced the 15 finalists for the European Inventor Award 2021. The prize recognizes outstanding inventors and their contribution to technology, society, and economy. This year, Wendelin Stark & Robert Grass are nominated in the category "research" for their new method of storing data in DNA (see the video). In parallel, the public can vote for them to win the Popular Prize. The voting is open and will close during the award ceremony on June 17.

Fertilizers, medicines and fuels have one thing in common: they are usually produced using fossil feedstocks and corresponding catalysts (substances that drive chemical reactions). To achieve carbon neutrality, we need new technologies and catalysts for renewable feedstocks. As the first center of its kind in the world, the ETH Zurich-associated NCCR Catalysis aims to revolutionize the production of chemicals and materials by creating, via interdisciplinary collaboration, innovative solutions.

The European Academy of Sciences (EURASC) is a non-profit non-governmental, independent organization of the most distinguished scholars and engineers performing forefront research and the development of advanced technologies. It aims to elect to its membership the best European scientists with a vision for Europe, and with the aim of strengthening European science and scientific cooperation. Now Ruth Signorell, Professor at the LPC, has also received the membership (Chemistry Division).

The SYNLETT Best Paper Award 20200 is being awarded to Philip Kraft, Quanrui Wang, Sereina Riniker (LPC) and co-workers for their article: A New Family of Rigid Dienone Musks Challenges the Perceptive Range of the Human Olfactory Receptor OR5AN1. The paper describes the design and discovery of the musk odorants, and investigates binding of the designer scents to a human musk receptor. The work was a joint effort between industrial and academic laboratories in Switzerland. 

The team of Ruth Signorell, Professor at the LPC, conducted an experiment to investigate the initial step in the formation of aerosols (nucleation). Previously it was impossible to observe the volatile components during nucleation in an experimental setting. Their findings are now aiding efforts to better understand and model that process – for example, the formation of clouds in the atmosphere.

New members at the D-CHAB: Professor Kathrin Lang, currently Associate Professor at the Technical University of Munich, is appointed as Full Professor of Chemical Biology. Her research, for which she recently received an ERC Consolidator Grant, is in the interdisciplinary area of chemical biology. Dr. Patrick Steinegger, currently Group Leader at the PSI, is appointed as Tenure Track Assistant Professor of Radiochemistry. He investigates the chemical properties of the transactinides.

Lignin is one of the most common organic compounds in the world, with an annual production of 20 billion tons. What if this complex substance could be easily converted into sustainable fuel? In 2017, Patrick Hemberger, scientist at the synchrotron of the Paul Scherrer Institute in Villigen, was the first to find an efficient way to investigate this process. For his work on reactive intermediates in heterogeneous catalysis, he is awarded the 2020 Ruzicka-Prize. Here, he introduces himself.

For 27 years, Wolfram Uhlig and his assistants have delighted their audience with barking "Chemical Dogs", flash fires of burning oil, and meter-high fountains of beer foam. Uhlig combined entertaining experiments with theoretical background in his shows. Thus, his chemistry lectures were a highlight among the students. Now, he retires and chats about exciting years, many “ETH unterwegs” tours through Switzerland, technical faux pas in TV studios, and the value of good science communication.

Many properties of water are still barely understood. This fact is partially due to mismatch between the temporal resolution of the available techniques and the dynamics of water. Hans-Jakob Wörner (LPC) and his team describe the first time-resolved measurement on the attosecond scale (1 attosecond = 10^-18 seconds) in the liquid phase. The team was able to resolve the time delay between the photoemission of electrons from liquid and gaseous water and could show how the time delay is produced. 

Gunnar Jeschke is the head of the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences at ETH Zürich. During the emergency operations, the chemistry building had to be shut down and courses were transferred online. In the following video he talks about his experience during the emergency operations. To the video

Anyone who wants to look at the atomic level to see the structure of materials, the way drugs work or viruses behave, needs great power and large equipment, in other words: several coils, umpteen kilometers of wire, all packed into potent cooling systems – in short, the world's strongest persistent magnet for nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). It recently moved into the HCI building on air cushions and is nurturing great hopes, e.g., in virus research.

When dancing or driving a car, people usually certified him a lack of technical talent. But in the laboratory Richard R. Ernst has always been one step ahead of the technology of his time. The Nobel Laureate for chemistry has revolutionized diagnostics in medicine with his groundbreaking research on nuclear magnetic resonance, even though it was a rocky road. Now, he published his autobiography in order to inspire others.

Professors at D-CHAB are busy with therapy research: Roland Riek (LPC), Dario Neri (IPW) and Jeffrey Bode (LOC) are investigating with their teams and cooperation partners possibilities for blocking the viral invasion of the host cell. In addition, Bode supports Martin Fusseneggers (D-BSSE) approach to attack the viral protease. Gisbert Schneider (IPW) focuses on blocking the viral RNA polymerase. Known and new inhibitory substances for that are tested right now.   

Among the 19 newly appointed ETH Zurich Professors is Sereina Z. Riniker, currently Tenure Track Assistant Professor and henceforth Associate Professor of Computational Chemistry at the Laboratory of Physical Chemistry at ETH Zurich. Sereina Riniker’s research has won a number of awards, including the Latsis Prize from ETH Zurich. Congratulations!

Michele Parrinello, Professor for Computational Science (D-CHAB), has received the 2020 Benjamin Franklin Medal together with Roberto Car from Princeton University for inventing an efficient computational method by combining molecular dynamics simulation and electronic structure calculations.

Revolutionizing nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and advancing drug development with the world's highest field NMR magnets are just two of Professor Barnes' many goals. On occasion of his inaugural lecture, he explains why German is important for chemists, how a sphere leads to signal amplification, and how biomolecular structures in human cells can be determined.

When living matter is damaged by radiation, the first reactive species that form are ionized water molecules. Prof. Hans Jakob Wörner and his team could show for the first time how and on which time scales this process takes place, and how electron and nuclear motion interact in the formation of freely moving electrons in water. These new findings are important for understanding and mitigating radiation damage, as well as for optimizing electron-induced chemical and photocatalytic processes.

The measurement of electrons moving through liquids is fundamental for understanding the chemistry of clouds or the radiation effect on tissues. However, until now gauging these electrons has been difficult, especially for the very slow ones. Prof. Ruth Signorell and her team from the LPC successfully ventured a new promising approach, published in Physical Review Letters.

Scientists from ETH Zurich and the University of Basel’s Biozentrum have shown that chaperone proteins dynamically bind to the Parkinson protein α-​synuclein. If this interaction is disturbed, it leads to cell damage and the formation of aggregates typical for the disease.

Chiral molecules - compounds that are mirror images of each other - play an important role in biological processes and in chemical synthesis. Chemists at ETH Zurich have now succeeded for the first time in using ultrafast laser pulses to observe changes in chirality during a chemical reaction in real time.

Prof. Ruth Signorell is awarded the Mildred Dresselhaus Senior Award 2019 of the Hamburg Centre for Ultrafast Imaging (CUI). The award recognizes her contributions to the fundamental understanding of the physical and chemical properties of aerosols and nanoparticles. The prize is also linked to the Mildred Dresselhaus Guest Professorship at CUI.

The Laboratory of Physical Chemistry welcomes Prof. Dr. Alexander Barnes. He started as Full Professor of Solid State NMR Spectroscopy on September 1. We wish Alexander a successful start and look forward to working with him.

ETH researchers have discovered a new mechanism that brain cells use to protect themselves from protein aggregates. Such aggregates play a key role in Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. This new finding might provide the basis for new therapeutic approaches.

Four of the professors newly appointed by the ETH Board on May 23, 2019, are members of the D-CHAB.

In a cover article of The Journal of Physical Chemistry, a research team from the University of Bristol and ETH Zurich describes how advanced virtual reality (VR) frameworks enable researchers to intuitively steer the training of machine learning algorithms and accelerate scientific discovery.

The Robin Hochstrasser Young Investigator Award 2018 goes to Prof. Jeremy Richardson for his outstanding work in the field of theoretical quantum molecular dynamics.

Prof. Markus Reiher receives the Credit Suisse Award for Best Teaching 2018. The award is given to previous winners of the Golden Owl and promotes quality teaching at tertiary level.

Chemical properties of actinides are not as well understood as for other elements. This is due to the fact that they are radioactive and therefore difficult to handle experimentally. In addition, theoretical studies on actinides are also challenging because of pronounced relativistic effects. PD Dr. Stefan Knecht and an international team of researchers now succeeded in calculating the most detailed electronic structure of diuranium molecule, U2, showing that it forms a quadruple bond.

Prof. Riniker receives the Latsis Prize 2018 of ETH Zurich for her groundbreaking contributions to the methodological development and applications of molecular dynamics simulations.

On August 1, Prof. Gunnar Jeschke takes over as Head of the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences. He is the successor of Prof. Karl-Heinz Altmann who continues as Deputy Head of Department. The D-CHAB wishes Prof. Jeschke a successful start in his new function.

Dr. GiovanniMaria Piccini was awarded the Ewald Wicke Prize by the Deutsche Bunsen-Gesellschaft für physikalische Chemie for “his methodological developments in nuclei and reaction dynamics and their application to relevant chemical problems”.

Prof. Wörner receives the Coblentz Award 2018, which goes annually to outstanding young molecular spectroscopists under 40. Prof. Wörner will receive the award in June at the International Symposium on Molecular Spectroscopy at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

Prof. Reiher is awarded to give the Per-Olov Löwdin Lecture 2018 at the Faculty of Science and Technology at Uppsala University. The biannually held lectureship is awarded to distiguished scholars in the field of quantum chemistry.

Prof. Signorell receives the ERC Advanced Grant for conducting studies on elementary transport processes of slow electrons in liquids and at the interface between liquids and gases, solids and other liquids. The grant is awarded to researchers who are exceptional leaders in terms of originality and significance of their research contributions.

Prof. Wörner receives the ERC Consolidator Grant to further develop X-ray spectroscopy methods. This grant is intended to support young researchers with a promising track record who want to consolidate the work of their already successful research group.  

On October 25^th, 2017, the Swiss Competence Center for Energy Research "Heat and Electricity Storage" held its 6^th Symposium in Martigny, Switzerland. 100 researchers from academia and industry met to discuss the latest technological advancements of engergy production and storage such as new batteries, catalysts, and heat storage.

ETH researchers succeeded in shortening the pulse duration of an X‑ray laser to only 43 attoseconds. With a time resolution in the range of a few quintillionths of a second, they are now able for the first time to observe the movement of electrons during chemical reactions in slow motion.

Prof. Reiher and an international team of researchers have come up with an example that demonstrates what quantum computers will actually be able to achieve in the future. They show how quantum computers can be used to elucidate the reaction mechanism for biological nitrogen fixation in the enzyme nitrogenase.

In 2017, Prof. em. Martin Quack was newly elected Foreign Honorary Member by the by American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The American Chemical Society COMP OpenEye Outstanding Junior Faculty Award is given annualy for outstanding tenure-track junior faculty members.

The Molecular Graphics and Modelling Society (MGMS) recognises Prof. Riniker's ongoing research work on the applications of molecular dynamics in biomolecular systems with the 9th Silver Jubilee Award.

Three out of eight Advanced Grants, the European Research Council (ERC) gave to ETH Zurich in the latest call for proposals go to the D-CHAB's professors Meier, Merkt, and Zenobi.

Prof. Thomas J. Schmidt will become the new head of the Energy and Environment Research Division (ENE) of the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in 2018. The PSI's energy research is concerned with processes that can be used in sustainable and safe technologies for the most carbon neutral energy supply possible.

On September 1, Jeremy Richardson will start as an Assistant Professor with tenure track at the Laboratory of Physical Chemistry. His main research focus is the theoretical description of quantum dynamical processes in complex systems.

Dr. Peter Kraus receives the Justin Jankunas Doctoral Dissertation Award of the American Physical Society. He is awarded for his dissertation, “Studies of Electronic and Nuclear Structure and Dynamics by High Harmonic Spectroscopy,” which he wrote under the direction of Prof. Hans Jakob Wörner at ETH Zürich

The Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences at the ETH Zurich seeks a Director for the new MoBiAs platform.

Prof. Dr. Hans Jakob Wörner is awarded the Carus Medal for his research on time-dependent quantum mechanics using subfemtosecond spectroscopy.