Review: Open Laboratories Day (TOL) 2024
After a four-year break, the Open Laboratory Day was held again on June 6, 2024. Around 100 students from four cantons made their way to the Hönggerberg with their teachers to experience various aspects of chemistry and pharmacy through lectures, laboratory tours, and an experimental show. A review with many pictures.
At 8 a.m. on June 6, 2024, the calm before the “storm” still prevailed in the HCI building. The morning light shyly filtered down through the atrium into the almost empty G-floor foyer. Then the whirring of the elevators announced the expected guests.
Within minutes, the room was filled with voices. School students and teachers from Zurich, Aargau, Schwyz, and Graubünden crowded around the registration tables and soon moved on towards the lecture hall, chatting excitedly – a picture that has not been seen at D-CHAB for some time now.
Until 2019, the Open Laboratories Day (TOL) was held regularly for seven years before the Corona pandemic and the International Chemistry Olympiad led to a longer break. Now the TOL will be held annually again.
As in the past, this year's event offered many curious visitors the opportunity to get to know chemistry and pharmacy from various perspectives – this time, however, with a focus on school students.
After the welcome by the Deputy Head of Department Prof. Erick Carreira, two presentations set the mood for the event: Prof. Helma Wennemers introduced the audience to the fascinating world of peptides, while Prof. Andrew deMello talked about new technologies and labs on a chip that could revolutionize diagnostics.
During the lab tours, the students could experience the practical side of research. Following guides with red bags, they, along the way, learned how to create 3D structural models of proteins (Jeschke Group), examine samples with the world's strongest permanent magnets (Riek Group), carry out quality control in a virology laboratory (Yamauchi Group) or how to produce radiopharmaceuticals, including handling robotic arms (Schibli Group).
Back in the lecture hall in the afternoon, Prof. Riek explained how fried eggs actually are connected to the origin of life, while Dr. Simon Böhme reported exciting facts about the quantum world of nanocrystals (who would have thought that 2*1023 quantum dots fit into a football – as many footballs as fit into our earth!). Dr. Michael Burger revealed methods of how DNA can be transferred into cells to cure diseases.
Afterwards, the students had the opportunity to take part in another lab session. They learned how to produce environmentally friendly hydrogen (Mougel Group) or watched a robot researching catalysts (SwissCat+). They also learned more about fluorescent sensors (Wennemers Group), the production of tiny LEDs (Shih Group) and the benefits of two-phase systems (Arosio Group) or molecular libraries (Wennemers Group).
As is tradition, the event closed with an experimental show, this time performed by Dr. Jan Cvengros, which not only revealed the colorful, red-hot, and ice-cold sides of chemistry but also the vociferous ones.
With this spectacular ending (and hopefully without ringing in the ears), the guests were finally dismissed for the afternoon. Perhaps we will see some of them again in the hallways of the HCI – maybe as future students working in one of the labs they had visited.
