News & Events
Here are some news about current and past events. For older entries, please check out the news archive.
Bestissimo Pestissimo
On 4th of October, we held our annual pesto competition. This year, Yves spiced things up with his fiery pesto and took the title of the besto pesto chef. Congratulations to him as well as Emma with Lena who were runner-ups.
LBB Group Retreat 2024 in Italy
This year LBB spent a week by the sunny Italian coast. More info to come ;)
Congratulations Dr. Ela for successfully defending your PhD!
On September 17, 2024, Ela successfully defended her thesis titled “Mechanochemical Stimulation And Cellular Force Dynamics: An Integrated Approach To Subcellular Mechanosensation”, and became a doctor of philosophy! Congratulations Ela, we are so proud of you!
Congratulations Christina for your best presentation award!
Our postdoctoral fellow, Christina, attended the Cambridge Bioelectronics Symposium 2024, July 1-3 2024, and won a best presentation award for her work on ‘Fabricating tissue-like materials to mimic the nervous system”. Congratulations, Christina!
Congratulations Til and UNOMR team for winning the Future Labs Live 2024 Basel start-up competition!
We are so proud of you, Til + UNOMR, for such an achievement! We can only imagine the fantastic pitch you presented, and are not surprised at all the judges recognized your incredible work!
Congratulations Annina for your ‘2024 Chemistry Travel Award’!
Our biosensing star PhD student, Annina, won a chemistry travel award which she used to attend a GRC in Rhode Island on ‘Bioanalytical Sensors’. Congratulations Annina, we are so proud of you!
Congrats Dr. Xinyu!
On April 29th, 2024, Xinyu successfully defended her thesis titled “Quantification of Cellular Forces”, and became a doctor of philosophy! She wowed us all her with her impressive images and videos of cells doing impressive things, and we cannot wait to see her wow-us again in her postdoc. Congratulations Xinyu, we are so proud of you!
Congratulations Blandine for a best oral presentation award!
Upgrading from best poster to best presentation award, Blandine wowed the audience at iPSZurich Symposium (4-5 April 2024), and was the audience-choice for best presentation award. Her work on developing a nerve model to study nociceptive neuron subtypes really stimulated us all. We are so proud of you, Blandine!
Congratulations Til on your BRIDGE Fellowship!
He’s back! Til Schlotter returns, this time as a postdoctoral fellow supported by a BRIDGE Proof of Concept fellowship to further UNOMR and their work on serial interface nanopore (iNP) technology. We’re excited to welcome you back to the lab, Til- and follow their work here: https://unomr.com/ !
Bye-bye Tobias!
At the end of February 2024, our beloved To-bibi finished his postdoctoral fellowship in the lab, on biohybrid retinal implants. Your cheerful attitude, coffee skills, and of course chocolate-snack-drawer will be heavily missed, Tobias, but we wish you the best of luck!
Congrats Dr. Stephan!
On January 12th, 2024, Stephan successfully defended his thesis titled “Bridging the Gap Between Biological and Artifical Neuronal Networks”, and became a doctor of philosophy! He has since moved to Chicago, where he has begun exciting postdoctoral work at University of Chicago as a Schmidt AI postdoctoral fellow. Congratulations, Stephan!
Bye-bye Nako!
At the end of December 2023, our wonderful senior scientist Nako has finished her time at LBB, and moved across Switzerland to Geneva, where she is beginning her own lab as an assistant professor at EPFL! We can’t wait to see all the fantastic publications and students that you will mentor, Nako, and we are so proud of you to continue this next step in your academic journey! Follow her progress here: https://www.epfl.ch/labs/chemina/team/!
Bye-bye Sinéad!
At the end of November 2023, our fantastic postdoc Sinéad wrapped up her work on fine manipulation of the FluidFM bot for all fun things cellular. While we are sad to see her go, we are thrilled that she will stay local, and join the fantastic team at Cytosurge. Congratulations Sinéad, we are so proud of you!
Congratulations Christina, on your first grant!
Our postdoctoral fellow, Christina, has won a Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) award in November 2023, which will be used in her future lab to investigate tools to diagnose and treat glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). Read more about it here! https://www.cprit.texas.gov/news-events/articles/cprit-illustrates-global-impact-with-63-million-to-bring-innovative-researchers-and-companies-to-texas-from-around-the-world/
Best poster award for Blandine !
Congratulations to Blandine, who won another best poster award, this time at the NanoBioTech conference in Montreux, Switzerland (November 13-15, 2023). Her work on 3D hydrogel-based nerve-on-chip co-cultures truly deserves the “Discovery award for high potential research”, and we are excited to see where this work will go next!!
Congrats Dr. Sean!
On Friday September 1st, 2024 Sean successfully defended his thesis titled “Neural Interfaces for Patterning and Sensing” and became a doctor of philosophy! His presentation was as impressive as his incredible results- but we did not expect anything less from you, Sean! We wish you a lot of success in your career and can’t wait to see where you’ll shine next!
LBB Group Retreat 2023 in Croatia
This year LBB decided to spend a relaxed (and active!) week on the sunny Croatian coast. We visited Zadar, the hometown of one of the PhD students. After arriving and getting energized by one of the most beautiful sunsets in the world, the next day was filled with interesting presentations from colleagues. It was, as always, motivating to see how much we have accomplished in the past half a year. The second day we went on the exciting boat trip to the island called Dugi otok, where we spent a day kayaking and doing beach activities. Later on in the week the official part was done and the most of us stayed for a fun week of sea, mountains and city life.We hope the next year's retreat can be as cool as this one, but it might be tough ;)
Goulash party 2023
On Friday July 22nd, Janos welcomed us in his home for his annual goulash party. As always, he prepared some great food and great drinks. Cheese puffs, meat and vegetarian goulash, dozens of different wine sorts and loads of ice cream made this a wonderful evening. To say thank you to Janos for being such a great advisor and support in general, PhDs and Postdocs gifted him a customized table fusball with 3D printed figurines of the current LBB members. Thanks a lot Stephan and Sinead for leading this cool gift-project! It is important to mention the LBB students that decided to show their gratitude by gifting Janos a very cool basketball hoop that will look great in LBB's new common space!
Thanks a lot Janos for organizing this event every year and gathering all of us together.
Annina wins Best Poster Prize!
LBB is on a roll, people! This time, very talented PhD student Annina won the Best Poster Prize on this year Microphysiological Systems World Summit which took place in Berlin this June. Among few hundreds of posters, Annina attracted judges' atttention by presenting her work on aptamer-modified sensors with nanoscale resolution that she is now interfacing with organoids. Many congrats on this valuable prize and we are sure there are many more to come!
Blandine wins Best Poster Prize!
Cambridge Bioelectronics Symphosium happened to be very successful for our dear PhD student Blandine. With her poster titled "Stimulation-induced response as a biomarker for sensory neuron subtypes on a CMOS-based nerve model", she showed her great research and results she had accomplished so far and collected a well deserved prize. Congrats Blandine, we don't doubt this is just one prize in a row and many are yet to follow!
LBB Pesto Presto is the besto
After years of thinking this would be a fun thing to do, Jens and Nako finally organized LBB’s 1st (non-annual, potentially-annual, semi-annual and/or annual) LBB Pesto Presto competition. This event took place on June 9th 2023 on the ETZ Terrace. Our hard-working competitors brought a jar of their home-made pesto and the organizers provided bread, pasta, wine and chinotto. Everybody voted on the besto pesto and the winners were: 1st place Lorenzo, 2nd place Leo and 3rd place Jamie. Congrats to the winners and many thanks to all participants!
New PhD student Giulia
This June we had a pleasure to welcome another PhD student in our lab. Giulia completed her undergraduate studies in Health Science and Technology at ETH Zurich last year. She completed her Master's thesis at LBB, where she collaborated with Tobias to develop an in vitro optical nerve model. Now, Giulia has returned to LBB for her doctoral studies and will continue working in bottom up neuroscience with a slightly different focus. Welcome Giulia, we wish you a lot of success and fun with LBB!
Lazy Bastards and their Boss rock it again at SOLA 2023
As every year, LBB took part in SOLA - the running relay in and around Zurich. On this extremely hot and sunny 6th of May, LBB gathered a fun and successful team of PhDs, postdocs, senior scientists and alumna and made it a really interesting and competitive day. It all ended with a nice BBQ party on the ETZ terrace with lots of food, drinks and laugther. Congrats to all the runners: Katarina, Nako, Blandine, Lijian, Stephan, Julian, Jens, Til, Yves, Andreas, Darius, Annina, Yassine and Janos for puting so much effort in!
UNOMR wins 3rd place at polyPITCH
Taking place for the first time this year, polyPITCH is a pitch competition for scientific staff at ETH Zurich. The competition was so fierce and our soon-to-be startup UNOMR pulled through with a podium finish. And as always, they were the audience's favorite. Congrats Til and Julian, we wish a lot of success to UNOMR in the future!
Congrats Dr. Til!
On March 31st 2023 Til has successfully defended his thesis titled "Interface nanopores for single biomolecule biosensing" and became a dcotor of philosophy! After rocking the presentation, Til organized an apero at ETH which was followed by a crazy party. We did not expect anything less from you, Til. We wish you a lot of success in your career and we sincerely hope UNOMR will rise and shine very soon!
Taufers 2023
Attention everyone, the most fun ski weekend of the year is here. Janos continues his 25-year-long tradition to bring the whole LBB in South Tirol for the 3-day ski-weekend. The trip started with a day of interesting scientific presentations given by PhDs and Postdocs (congrats everyone on your progress and amazing research you do on a daily basis) and then two days of skiing followed. Some us were beginners, some were pros and some chose a relaxing spa day instead. But what is common to all of us, is that we had so much fun during the day and in the evening. Many thanks to our host Lucas, Sonya and the rest of Chavalatsch Hotel staff in Taufers for an amazing time and a lot of patientce and care. Equally many thanks to our PhD student Julian for flawlessly doing the whole trip organization on his own. Lastly but not least(ly), thanks Janos for creating an incredible atmosphere in the lab and giving all of us experiences to remember!
Congratulations Dr. Blickenstorfer!
On February 24th 2023 Yves climbed another step in his successful carrier. Yves defended his PhD thesis titled Quantitative Biosensing. Yves gave an excellent presentation and tackled the referees' questions like he does it every day. His presentation was followed by an apero and the party that for some lasted until very late night hours. Luckily, Yves is not leaving LBB yet as he is continuing his work in LBB-spinoff startup Hemetron. Congrats Yves and much success with the company!
LBB Christmas Party 2022
Since the mountain hut in Schlieren back in 2021 was such a success, we decided to have the Christmas party there again. As always, the atmosphere was top notch and the food was typical Swiss - famous Raclette with boiled potatoes and white wine. We had a lot of wine and cheese and of course a lot of fun, especially with the secret crappy santa gifts that we brought. We finished the successful year of 2022 in a good mood and ready for new challenges. Many thanks to Jens and Julian for organizing and even more thanks to Janos for making this all happen. We wish all LBB happy holidays!
Welcome Giacomo and Joël!
Since November 1 st LBB has two more members. Giacomo from Italy and Jo ël from Switzerland had join the group as PhD students. Giacomo studied bioengineering master's programme at the University of Padova and did his master's thesis in our lab, working with FluidFM for single-cells biophysics. Now, he will focus on a project titled "Mechanical properties of a skin disease at the single-cell level". On the other hand, Joël is a former ETH student with a master's degree in electrical engineering and information technology. In LBB he will work in the field of bottom-up neuroscience, where he also did one of the semester projects during his studies.
Row, Léo, row!
Important news: ETH Zurich wins this year's 70th UNI-POLY rowing regatta against University of Zurich 2:1. More important news: our Léo is part of the winning team! For two years in a row (hehe), he has beaten the tough competition and gotten into the team. And this year, he crowned his success with a win! This is definitely not Léo's only success in rowing and other disciplines (sports and scientific), but it is the one we are particularly proud of! Congrats, Léo, we expected no less from you!
Congratulations, Janos!
LBB is extremely proud to say that this year's Dandelion Enterpreneurship Award winner is our dear Janos! Dandelion Enterpreneurship Award is the first award to recognize professors for their outstanding efforts to promote entrepreneurship at ETH Zurich. Thanks to Janos' years-long enormous support of his students' novel ideas and dedication in making these ideas possible, this year he had the honor to receive this motivating award as a professor from our D-ITET department. We believe that Hemetron and lino Biotech, the two start-ups Janos is currently hosting in his lab, are very grateful and contributed to Janos getting this important award. Let's continue in the same light!
LBB Group Retreat 2022
This year LBB decided to spend wonderful three days in the mountain hut in Elm, near Glarus. We had an extensive two-day seminar where each of us showed our scientific accomplishments and future plans. This was followed by two excellent dinners and very fun nights in the hut, where some of the brave ones tried out their table tennis skills. We came down the mountain in a very stylish way (see picture below) and concluded the trip with an excellent lunch in Glarus. Many thanks to the hosts, to our LBB members who organized the event, Benedikt, Ela and Mengjia and of course many many thanks to our Janos, for making these events possible and constantly working on LBB being the great environment to work in. Prost everybody!
Welcome to the lab, Christina!
Christina obtained a Bachelor of Science in Physics, and a Bachelor of Engineering in Materials Science & Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2015. At MIT, she worked in the lab of Professor Polina Anikeeva for 3.5 years. After a year at EPFL working with Professor Stephanie Lacour, she returned back to Boston to complete her PhD at Harvard University with Professor David Mooney. Her thesis was entitled “Designing viscoelastic bioelectronic interfaces: from the organ to cell scales”, and she worked both on developing fully viscoelastic multielectrode surface arrays to record from the brain, and on the development of 3D scaffolds to support and stimulate neural cells.
Christina joined LBB in September 2022, and her project involves integrating hydrogels into multielectrode arrays to enable and study 3D cultures of neuronal cells.
It is goulash time again!
On a hot summer Friday, July 22nd 2022, Janos invited us all into his home and prepared once again a wounderful Pince Pörkölt. Plenty of current and future LBB members as well as alumni gathered in Janos' garden to enjoy the beautiful afternoon and evening. We had an infinite source of food, an infinite source of wine and thus, an infinite source of fun! To say thanks to Janos for organizing this nice event and being a great boss in general, PhDs and postdocs made him a proud owner of a wine plant from A & C Chevalley wineyards in Lavaux. Very clever, LBB, because this means even more wine for the next five years!
P.S. For those unfamiliar with the concept, Janos is not unhappy with his presents, he is just douching ;) (if you are still confused, please contact Jens)
Congratulations, Dr. Sophie Girardin!
On Friday, July 15th 2022 Sophie has successfully defended her thesis titled "Building networks of human iPSC-derived neurons". The defense was followed by a nice apero and an awesome party organized by the amazing Nino. While we are all very proud of our Sophie and wish her all the best in her future life challenges, we must admit we are very, very sad that she is leaving. Sophie was indeed a key member of LBB, whose both scientific and social contributions will be hard to surpass. Thanks a lot Sophie for always being helpful, thoughtful, positive and a great colleague in general. Good luck!
Sophie's interview in ZNZ News
Recently, Sophie published her paper titled "Topologically controlled circuits of human iPSC-derived neurons for electrophysiology recordings" in Lab on a Chip. On that occasion, she gave a written interview for Neuroscience Center Zurich (ZNZ), where she explained the bottom-up approach to neuroscience we apply in our lab. You can read the interview external page here, while the paper is available external page here.
Congratulations Sophie on the good work!
Best poster award for Juju (again!)
LBB had its representatives at FEBS Advanced Course 2022 which took place in Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Spain, June 19 - 24. Moreover, Julian came back with yet another poster prize with his poster titled "Interface Nanopores as a Toolfor Next-Generation Single-Molecule Sensing". Well done Juju!
It is SOLA Run 2022 and LBB runs like crazy, people!
After two long covid years, SOLA was finally able to take place on May 7th in Zurich. As every time, LBB gathered a very good team of PhDs, postodcs, students and alumni who showed once again that science and sports make a very good combo. Not even rain could stop us! The atmosphere was amazing, everybody was hyped and we finished the race as 151. out of 873 teams. This result was rewarded with a nice barbecue at the ETF terrasse. Congratulations to Annina, Diego. Blandine, Katarina, Andreas, Julian, Jens, Tao, Til, Anna, Yves, Sophie, Josephine and Nako and to all others who came to support us. Bravo LBB and see you next year!
Ski-weekend in Taufers after two long years!
The most exciting weekend of the year is finally back! March 9th - 12th LBB group members, students and alumni had the opportunity to spend a lovely ski-weekend in a small village of Taufers, Italy. After the scientific part of the trip where everybody shared their most recent work and exchanged ideas, skiing finally started! No matter if you are a professional or you have never skied before, it was a lot of fun for everyone! Thankfully, the weather could not be better and we were blessed two days of sunny slopes in Austria and Italy. Even though skiing was very tiring (physically and mentally ;) for some more than the others), we still had a lot of energy to party in the evenings! Thank you Janos for organizing this wonderful event year after year and giving everybody a unique experience, thank you Til and Julian for the flawless organization and many thanks to the hotel staff for a beautiful stay, food and patience!
Best poster award for Juju!
This year on The 3DMM2O Conference Julian made us all proud by winning the best poster prize! His poster titled "Electrochemical Multi-Metal Nano- and Micro-3D Printing" surely caught some attention and showed once more that fellow LBBers know how to do it!
Welcome Sinéad!
New year, new postdoc! On January 1st 2022, Sinéad joined LBB for her postdoc in the topic of single cell picking and placing with FluidFM Bot. Sinéad finished her undergraduate studies in biomedical engineering in the University of Limerick. Afterwards she did her PhD, also in the University of Limerick in biomicrofluidics, focusing on how fluid mechanics of in vitro channels influence the behaviour of cells in suspension. We are very happy to have you here in LBB!
LBB Christmas party is coming to town!
After two sad years of COVID pandemic, LBB was finally able to organize a traditional Christmas dinner in one of Zurich's charming chalets. We were enjoying a true Swiss experience with a famous Raclette and topped up with Gluehwein to help digest it. With plenty of music, dancing, laughter, Christmas decorations and funny pictures, we made this a night to remember. Thank you Janos for making this event possible and many thanks to our dedicated organizers, Jens and Julian, for making it flawless. Ho, ho, ho, everybody!
Welcome Annina and Benedikt!
LBB is happy to greet two more PhD students. Annina and Benedikt had both started their academic journey with us on November 1st 2021. Annina did her masters at EPFL in Life Science engineering, and the master thesis here at LBB. She worked on developing a diagnostic inflammatory biomarker assay with the Hemetron team and has now started her research in biosensing with nanopipettes. Benedikt has a degree in Electrical Engineering with Biomedical Systems Engineering from RWTH Aachen University and he joined the neuro-team!
LBB Group Meeting at Geordie's Pub
The end of October was perfect for a bit of an english-pub atmosphere. Janos had decided to combine a regular monthly group meeting and a regular Friday beer into a totally unregular Friday beer group meeting at Geordie's Pub in ETH Hönggeberg! We exchanged the updates about our on-going research and afterwards enjoyed a really fun evening with food, drinks and music. Thank you Janos for merging fun and science once again!
Welcome Mengjia!
As of October 1st 2021 we have a new PhD student in our group! Mengjia Xu is a former LBB student. She obtained her masters in micro and nanosystems here at ETH Zürich and has now started a PhD in FluidFM cell measurement. We are happy to have you here with us and we wish you a warm welcome!
LBB Group Retreat 2021
Who said that organizing a traditional LBB group retreat in Zürich cannot be fun? Whoever it was, we proved them wrong! The weather was on our side on August 26th and 27th, it allowed us to spend two pleasant evenings in a city center, as well as a beautiful afternoon in Eglisau, a small place on the river Rhine. We built up a team spirit paddling a dragon boat on the Rhine and had lots of fun, well deserved after all the scientific talks that we presented and discussed. Don't be afraid that we were hungry either. All sorts of different food (and drinks, of course) gave us the energy to show once again how good it is to be part of LBB. Many thanks to Janos and the organizers for making it happen. Let's hope next year we do the same in a different time zone!
Nako named one of this year’s 35 Innovators Under 35 by MIT Technology Review
We are all used to LBBers winning all sorts of prizes, but one does not hear this one too often - our Nako was selected into top 35 Innovators Under 35 by MIT among over 500 people that are nominated every year! This is a well-deserved reward for all her work and achievements so far. Congratulations, we couldn't be more proud! Who knows which award you will receive next :)
More about Nako's nomination you can find out from external page MIT's official website and in her interview with ETH.
As an appreciation for everything she had done and has been doing for LBB, on Friday, July 23rd we organized a surprise BBQ party for Nako on our terrace and we of course had so much fun. In the pictures we bring you a bit of Friday's atmosphere. Thank you Nako for giving us reasons to celebrate!
LBB Kitchen Upgrade
As promised, we bring up Janos' birthday gift in a bit more detail. As a thank you for being an exceptional advisor (not supervisor!) and for creating such a great atmosphere in the lab, this year we decided to give Janos no more, no less than an LBB beer tap equipped with LBB-themed coasters! Furthermore, Janos had decided to put this beer tap into our kitchen and make our Friday beers even more fun. What other thing to say than - cheers LBBeers!
Pince Pörkölt is back!
After a one-year break, we gathered again on Friday, July 16th at Janos' garden for his annual Pince Pörkölt Party! Current LBB members, students and alumni had the opportunity to taste his amazing traditional Hungarian stew. The goulash was still on the top level and so were we with the party spirit! Aside from a perfect food, there was also no lack of fancy red and white wine. And for the braver ones - schnaps! As the tradition goes, the current LBB members presented Janos with an awesome gift (more about this in the next post). Janos, thank you very much for a fun and interesting Friday, which reminded us all to be grateful that the situation is slowly but steadily going back to normal!
Congratulations Dr. Lüchtefeld and Dr. Llerena Zambrano!
On June 18th 2021 we had the honour to take part in not one, but two PhD defenses. Byron defended his thesis on "Soft, Conductive Nanocomposites and Thin-Films for Biomedical Applications", while Ines defended her thesis titled "The Role Of Cell & Membrane Mechanics In Cellular Mechanosensitivity". Luckily, the COVID-19 situation allowed for the defenses to be held in person. We congratulate Ines and Byron for amazing presentations and for all the work they have done at and for LBB. Thank you also for a nice COVID-compliant celebration afterwards. You are welcome to stop by LBB at any time to celebrate even more. We wish you all the best in your future work!
Best oral presentation to Nako!
Nako has received the prize for the best oral presentation at the European Biosensor Symposium for her talk entitled: “Towards Simultaneous Neurochemical Sensing and Electrophysiology via Aptamer Based Bioelectronics”. Congratulations Nako!!!
Welcome Blandine!
Blandine Clément has stared her PhD at LBB on March 1st. We wish you a good start and welcome to the lab!
Welcome Leo & Katarina!
LBB has welcomed 2 new PhD students. Leo Sifringer has stared his PhD at LBB on October 1st and on November 1st Katarina Vulic joined our group. We wish you both a good start and welcome to the lab!
Best Oral Presentation Award for Til
During the S3IC (Single-Molecule Sensors and nanoSystems International Conference) online conference, held between November 9-11th, Til has won another award. Congratulations Til!
He was awarded 500$ for his talk titled: ‘Single-Molecule Sensing of Cell Secretion using Force-Controlled Nanopores’ where he mostly presented his work from his latest work that was just published in ACS Nano.
Congratulations Dr. Renz!
On the 21st of October Aline has succesfully defended her PhD thesis ob "Neural Sensing Devices for In Vivo and In Vitro Applications". Due to the COVID-19 situation it was held online over ZOOM, the first ZOOM PhD defense here at LBB. However, that couldn't stop Aline from giving an amazing defense presentation! Congratulations Dr. Renz with your nice work, well done! We wish you all the best for your future and we hope you won't forget us at LBB.
Ines Receives Travel Award
Ines has won a travel grant worth $750 to attend the 64th Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society in San Diego, USA. The conference took place from the 15th to 19th of February where Ines gave a talk on "Investigating the Influence of Membrane Pretension on Single Cell Mechanosensitivity with Force-Controlled Micropipettes". Congratulations Ines!
Poster Award for Elaheh
During the 22nd International Conference on Advances in Single-Molecule Research for Biology & Nanoscience in Linz, Austria, January 31 - February 3, Elaheh has won the best poster award for her poster "Fluidic Force Microscopy for Single Cell Manipulation". Well done Elaheh!
Welcome Jens & Julian, Goodbye Frido
LBB welcomes two new PhD studens! Last September Jens Duru joined LBB and in January Julian Hengsteler has started with his PhD studies. Jens did his MSc in Biomedical Engineering here at ETH and was a semester student at LBB. Now he has started as a PhD student and will work on neural circuits. Julian, just like Jens, is also a former LBB alumni, he has done his bachelor project, semester project and master thesis with us. His PhD studies will focus on 3D metal printing. Welcome back Jens & Julian!
Sadly, last week we had to say goodbye to Dr. Fridolin Treindl, who had spent 2 years at LBB as a Roche Post-Doc and will now continue his career in Wageningen, NL. We organized a nice goodbye-presentation and gift for Frido to remember LBB. We wish you all the best for the future!
LBB's Christmas Fondue
On Friday December 13th many of the LBB members, staff, students as well as spouses gathered in a cosy hut in the woods near Illnau for our annual Christmas dinner. Instead of the traditional raclette, this year we tried a tasty local cheese fondue for the first time and it was a great success! After the fondue there was enough room left in our stomach's to enjoy the delicious dessert, which was sponsored by the LBB spinoff Nanoleq. Thank you Nanoleq! Following the dessert we played a round of "Schrottwichteln" during which many "gifts" were either unwrapped or stolen from other participants, leading to lots of laughter and some unhappy people ;) Big thanks to Jens & Sophie, and their helpers, for organizing this amazing dinner!
Nako Wins Research Pitch Price at OILS!
In October, Nako attended the Open Innovation in Life Sciences conference in Zurich where she won the research pitch price. Congratulations Nako! Well done!
Video of the OILS (Nako at 2:06): external page https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPMgCbyIKTo
Bravo Stephanie!
On Friday October 11th our LBB member Stephanie has successfully defended her thesis on "Amplicfication-Free Oligonucleotide Sensing with Gold Nanoparticles". Congratulations Dr. Hwu, well done! LBB will miss your ever cheerful mood, caring attitude and organizational skills for all kinds of activities. As our in-house social media guru, we now have to look somewhere else for helpful advice on presentation slides, brochure and LinkedIn design. We wish you all the best in California, enjoy the driving lessons and sports gear/classes and please pass by LBB whenever you're back in Zurich!
Congrats Csaba!
Congratulations to Csaba for having succesfully defended his thesis on "Teaching Neural Networks In Vitro and In Silico" on Wednesday October 2nd. We hope you've enjoyed the traditional "PhD life" presentation (some alumni wanted to teach you a lesson ;)), the crafted hat and the gifts. True king of the LBB BBQ, you will be missed, as well as your sarcastic jokes and vivid discussions. We wish you all the best at Stanford and whenever you're back in Zurich don't forget to attend the Friday Beer/BBQ!
Group Retreat '19 at Costa Brava
In late September the offices and labs at LBB were empty as the annual Group Retreat took place, this year on the sunny coast of the Costa Brava in Spain. We had seen great scientific presentations from all members during the first two days, enjoyed lots of great (sea)food and for the social activity we took part in a nice kayak tour and an amazing wine tasting with dinner. A huge thanks to the organizing team, Ines, Byron and Nako, for making it a great time!
Janos' Annual Pince Pörkölt Party
Also this year all of current LBB members, students, as well as alumni and friends&family were invited by Janos for the yearly Pince Pörkölt (traditional Hungarian Stew) party in his garden. The goulash tasted amazing as usual, and there was plenty of "gespritzte Weisse" and plum schnapps till late in the evening. This year the current LBB members presented a special made video "A Day at LBB" (based on "Lemon Tree" by Fools Garden) as a gift for Janos, together with 1 meter of customized LBBeers. Thank you so much Janos for serving such great food and drinks. We all had a great Friday evening and are already looking forward to next years event!
Poster Prize for Til
Last week at the European Biophysics Conference in Madrid, Til has won the poster award in the category "Single Molecule Biophysics'. Congratulations Til! Besides his research, Til also has a lot of fun and success in designing posters as this is already his third poster prize.
Welcome Xinyu
This month our newest LBB member, Xinyu Zhang, has started with her PhD studies. Xinyu has graduated from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology with a master's degree in Material Science & Engineering. At LBB, Xinyu will work on force-controlled sub-compartmental perturbation of primary cells under the ITN project with Professor Tomaso Zambelli. Welcome Xinyu!
LBB Ends Third Place at Annual SMW Soccer Cup
On Thursday June 13th, the LBB soccer team (Logic Balls and Beers) participated in the annual Soccer-Cup organized by the SMW of D-MATL. Our team did really well and ended up third in the rankings. Well done LBB!
Bravo Dr. Hana Han!
On Thursday 24th of May 2019, our LBB colleague Hana Han has successfully defended her PhD Thesis on "Hollow Polymeric Cantilevers: From Optical Beam Detection to Piezoresistive Readout''. We hope you enjoy your PhD hat and your well-deserved gifts, and that you're not too mad at us for the fake "Bird Sanctuary" voucher ;) We wish you all the best for the future, have fun at the Zurich Open Air and please don't forget to stop by LBB from time to time for a beer and a nice party! Congrats again Dr. Hana Han!
Congrats Dr. Greta Thompson Steckel!
On Friday 12th of April, LBB's Greta Thompson-Steckel has succesfully defended her PhD thesis. Congratulations Dr. Greta Thompson Steckel! Of course as LBB tradition states, Greta couldn't leave LBB without the traditional custom-made PhD hat and a funny PhD life presentation. We will miss you during our Friday beers, but fortunately you'll stay around in Zurich so please do come back for an ale or a lager in the LBB kitchen :) LBB wishes you all the best Dr. Greta!
LBB runs SOLA!
On May 4th 2019, LBB participated in the 46. SOLA-Stafette in Zurich. With a team of 14 runners we run under the name of Lazy Bastards and their Boss, and ended on the 230th overall place out of 1000 participating teams. As tradition states, there was a cold but cosy post-race barbeque at the D-ITET roofterrace. Well done LBB!
Poster Price for Aline
LBB's Aline has won the third price of the poster session with her poster on "Fabrication of PDMS Based MEA for Electrical and Optical Recording in Transgenic Mice'' at the BioEl2019 International Winterschool on Bioelectronics in Kirchberg in Tirol. Congratulations Aline, well done!
A Festive Fondue Party
On Tuesday February 26th many LBB members got together in our kitchen for our annual fondue evening. This time it was organized by Csaba who wanted to celebrate his recently assigned Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship with us. Congratulations Csaba with your fellowship and thank you for the delicious fondue!
Bravo Flurin!
Dr. Flurin Stauffer has received two prices for his thesis ''Soft and Stretchable Electronics for Interfacing Biological Tissues''. The first award was the 2018 Research Award honored by the Swiss Society for Biomedical Engineering (SSBE) and the second award was the Hilti Price for innovative reasearch at ETH Zurich, handed out by ETH's rector Prof. Dr. Sarah Springman. Great job Flurin! Congratulations with these well deserved research awards!
LBB Christmas Dinner
On December 20th many members from LBB got together in the Trublerhütte in Schlieren for our Christmas raclette dinner. As tradition states, there was glühwein from the fire outside before starting off with the Swiss raclette and Secret Santa. This year LBB's spin-off companies Nanoleq and Ectica Technologies sponsored the Christmas dessert, thank you guys!
Prof. Dr. Tomaso Zambelli
On December 14th PD Dr. Tomaso Zambelli, senior lecturer and leader of the FluidFM group at LBB, has been awarded the title of Adjunct Professor at ETH Zurich. Bravo Tomaso! We're very proud of you!
New LBB Member: Elaheh
Last November LBB has grown a bit as Elaheh Zare-Eelanjegh joined our group. During her PhD studies at LBB Elaheh will be working on manipulation of cardiomyocytes with the FluidFM. Welcome Ela!
Bravo Livie!
LBB is happy to anounce our new Doctor, Dr. Livie Dorwling-Carter! Congratulations to Dr. Livie, who has succesfully defended her thesis on "Force-Controlled Nanopipette for Local Ion Current Measurements at Interfaces and Living Cells'' last Friday October 26th . We hope you enjoy your PhD hat and wish you a very well deserved and relaxing time at the chocolate course, spa and at the theatre! And please don't forget to stop by LBB every now and then to say hi!
Welcome Nako!
LBB is happy to welcome Dr. Nako Nakatsuka as an ETH Postdocoral Fellow to our lab for a 2 year project. We wish you a good start and a great stay in our lab!
Morteza's Goodbye Party
Last Friday we sadly had to say goodbye to Dr. Morteza Aramesh. We will miss your happy smile and your good barista skills! According to LBB traditions Morteza could not leave LBB without having had a proper goodbye party, complete with a presentation and some nice gifts :) We wish you all the best at your next position at Prof. Vogel's Lab at the Honggerberg Campus.
Morteza's Goodbye Party
Another Poster Award
Congratulations again to Til for winning another Best Poster Award, this time at the "Biointerfaces International 2018" conference (August 14-16, Zurich). Well done Til!
Poster prize
Congratulations to Til for winning the poster prize at the conference conference "From Solid State to Biophysics IX: From Basic to Life Sciences" (June 16-23, 2018, Dubrovnik)! We look forward to the amazing pictures of our lab events you'll be able to make now with the fancy camera you won ;)
Congratulations Alex!
Huge congrats to our new Doctor Alexander Tanno, who successfully defended his Ph.D. Thesis on "Resolving the Challenges of Hand-Held Electrochemical Biosensing". We will miss your always happy smile around the lab! Do not forget to pass by our Friday Beers to which you were an active part :)
Alex defense
Well done Nanoleq!
Congratulations to Dr. Vincent Martinez and his start-up company Nanoleq started from his Ph.D. work for being external page one of the five winners of this year's W.A. de Vigier Preis. Well done!!
Congratulations Serge!
Big congrats to our new Doctor Serge Weydert for his successful defense on "Man-Made Brain Modules. A tool for Fundamental Neuroscience". Luckily none of your experiments on neurons turned you into a "Frankeinstein", only your congratulating Ph.D. hat did :) We hope you like your "Frankeinstein-neuron".
Bravo Raphi!
Congratulations to our new Doctor Raphael Tiefenauer who successfully defended his Ph.D thesis on "Novel Techniques for Applicable Biosensing with Plasmonic Nanostructures". Well done and good luck for the future!
Ski week-end!!
As traditionnally, the lab members and their spouses, alumni and current bachelor/master students could enjoy a 3 days long week-end in Taufers. In the program: skiing, snowboarding, suntanning and napping on transat chairs, even paragliding and accrobatic figures for the most adventurous ones, apres-ski, great food, fun games nights. This year was the highest number of participants! Our LBB train at the apres-ski could definitely not be missed and managed to motivate many other skiers to join, even the youngest ones :)
ski week end 2018
Welcome Fridolin!
Dr.Fridolin Treindl just joined LBB on the molography project for his postdoc. Welcome in the lab! and thanks for the amazing German beers your brought us for last Friday beer :)
Congratulations nanoleq and Ectica Technologies !
We are keen to announce that the LBB spin-off companies external page nanoleq and external page Ectica Technologies were both recently awarded support and competitive funding by the Horizon 2020 SME Instrument Program of the European Union (Phase 1). In the phase 1 both companies are awarded EUR 50'000 and are mentored by experts to propose a feasibility study in preparation of the phase 2 proposal (EUR 0.5-2.5 Mio).
nanoleq, founded in 2017, developed a radically new cable technology. By using innovative conductive materials, the nanoleq team can produce cables that have an extremely long lifetime while keeping excellent electrical properties and high mechanical flexibility. In markets such as medtech, robotics, aerospace and high-end consumer electronics, the solution developed at nanoleq could bring significant reliability in the future. The company received funding to develop their material production from prototype quantities to larger volumes, with the goal of advancing 2 pilot studies with partner companies.
Ectica Technologies, founded in 2015, develops and markets hydrogel-based tools used in the fields of cell-based assays and phenotypic screenings. The core know-how of the company are innovative manufacturing processes for hydrogels, merging electrochemistry, enzyme and polymer technologies. Within the scope of the phase 1, Ectica will demonstrate the feasibility of scaling up the production of 3DProSeed well plates to meet the growing demand for 3D cell culture consumable products.
Contacts:
nanoleq GmbH: Dr. Vincent Martinez ()
Ectica Technologies AG: Dr. Benjamin Simona ()
Poster prize
Congratulations to Cathelijn for winning the Best Poster Award at the 2017 MRS Fall Meeting (26 November-1 December Boston, USA) for her work on "3D Additive Manufacturing of Micron Scaled Metal Structures Using FluidFM Technology. Nice job!
A bigger lab
Not only did the group members get bigger from the enjoyable Christmas holidays but also the lab as it welcomes this January four new PhD students. Welcome to Sophie, Sean, Stephan and Til!
Christmas Diner
Oh oh oh Christmas is coming and as such our traditional Christmas diner too! The group members and spouse, as well as the lab current students, could enjoy a delicious raclette diner in a little remote hut, livened up with amazing deserts and drinks. We also got lucky that Secret Santa Claus visited us.
christmas diner
Bravo Flurin!
Congratulations to Flurin for his succesful defense just before the Christmas holidays, what a nice way to celebrate the end of the year! We hope you enjoy your PhD hat inspired from your work on "Soft and stretchable electronics for interfacing biological tissues" and in this case the bladder :) All the best for your future! We are already excited about seeing you regularly in the kitchen for coffee breaks since you remain close-by ;) Cheers!
Flurin's hat
Fondue night
Friday beer was a bit special this time in honour of our former secretary Esther Singer who retired last summer and traditionnaly made us each winter a Fondue before Christmas time. Thanks Csaba for organizing the fondue this year and Esther for the amazing fondue you made us! That brought back nice memories, and definitely happy stomachs!
Fondue time
Awesome Mathias!
Congratulations to our new Doctor: Mathias Aebersold! who successfully defended his thesis about "New Tools for Engineered Networks of Neurons" last Friday (08.12.2017). We will definitely miss our favourite shoe fan but hope that you will come cheer with us from time to time in the lab with the fancy drink delivery hat we made for you! All the best for your future meanwhile!
Volley Night
Our LBB team (HurzBB) joined the Volley Night organized by the ASVZ for fun games and happy sharing. Thanks Andreas F., Janos, Miquel, Raphi, Betty, Katharina and Ines to have proudly represented us!
A new member
Welcome to Dr. Dmitry Momotenko who joined the LBB in November and will start his own research within the lab. Happy to have you with us for the upcoming years!
A nice Alumnus visit
It was very nice to meet up again with our alumnus Takumi Sannomiya and see his impressive achievements as Professor of the external page Sannomiya lab. Thanks also for introducing Prof. Masahiko Hara and Prof. Takaaki Yano on your visit!
Bravo Silvio!
Congratulations to Silvio Bischof for his Swiss Society for Biomedical Engineering (SSBE) Student Award for his work "From Fresnel zone plates to molography-A numerical framework to simulate diffractometric biosensors". Well done!!
Janos Pince Porkolt party and Esther celebration
Janos organized his yearly Pince Porkolt party, inviting all the lab members, family and alumni for a gathering in his garden. It is as always such good food and drinks! Thanks Janos for the amazing Friday evening that we all look forward to each year!!
This year was a bit special too as it was the occasion to throw a good-bye party to our secretary Esther Singer who has been with us from the beginning and we will terribly miss. Thanks Esther for the delicious cakes you brought us! We hope you enjoyed our gift and that you will come and visit us from time to time!
Janos Pince Porkolt Party and Esther good-bye
Welcome Byron
The lab is happy to expand with his new PhD student Byron Llerena Zambrano who just started in June 2017 and will be working on stretchable electronics.Welcome among us Byron!
Bye Volker, welcome Jonathan!
Sadly Dr.Volker Gatterdam's time in the lab touched to an end after 2 years of postdoctoral work on the Molography with us. Luckily, Dr. Jonathan Simonin is as motivated to follow up on his promising work! Welcome Jonathan and all the best to you Volker! We wait impatiently for your next visit in Zürich!
Bravo Greta!
Congratulations to Greta Thompson-Steckel for winning the Nature Materials Best Talk Prize at the BioEl2017 International Winterschool on Bioelectronics (Austria, March 2017). Well done!
Ski week-end!
As every year, the lab and its former alumni are invited to spend altogether a ski week-end in Taufers. In the program: 3 days of fun, ocsillating between skiing, snowboarding, apres-ski, games, 2 birthday celebrations (happy birthday Marco and Raphael!) and amazing food, drinks in the hotel we specially rent for this event. We already look very much forward to next year!
Taufers ski week-end
Surprise goodbye party
We could not have let our guest PhD student Xinnan Cui leave the group back to Japan without a proper goodbye party. So happy surprise crepe party to celebrate 8 months of collaboration and fun! We hope you enjoyed your stay and that your Swiss gifts will contribute in inciting you to coming back to see us in Zürich.
Crepe party
New PhD students
The lab is happy to announce the start of three new PhD members: Yves Blickenstorfer, Cathelijn van Nisselroy and Ines Lüchtefeld. Welcome in the group and we wish you lots of fun with your exciting PhD projects! (Fiber optic biosensing, 3D (bio)printing wth the FluidFM, and Neurons manipulation with the FluidFM respectively).
Merry Christmas!
As every year, the group members and their spouses could enjoy a fun and tasteful evening in a chalet in Bülach to celebrate Christmas by gathering around home-made Glühwein, swiss raclette and delicious desserts! Secret Santa also stopped by the chalet and made a lot of happy faces. Merry Christmas everyone!
LBB christmas celebration
Bravo Luca !
Congratulations Harald!
A fruitful summer for LBB
Congrats Luca
Bravo Vincent!
Dumpling goodbye party !
Two LBB patents part of the ETH Spark Award 2016!
Traditional ski week-end in Taufers!
Ski 2016 Taufers
Whiskey tasting
Dumpling party to celebrate the lunar year
dumpling
MipTec Product Innovation Award for Dr.Simona!
Brava Victoria!
Congratulations Florian!
Happy Birthday Tomaso!
SOLA race
Students meet the LBB
Another Award for LBB
Bravo Pascal!
Congratulations Prayanka!
New LBB coffee machine
Traditional group ski week end in Taufers
Bravo Benji!
ETH Medal Award
Congratulations Bernd!
Bravo Juliane!
New PhD students
The lab is happy to welcome two new PhD students: Hana Han and Stephanie Hwu.
AFM Biomed Conference 2014 in San Diego
Congratulations Dario!
LBB Christmas Dinner
Vasilis and Eleanora´s goodbye
Iceskating
Dumpling Party and Shiang-Chi's goodbye
After 6 month being guest in our group , Shiang-Chi is going back to Taiwan. We wish him all the best for his future!
For his good bye party he showed us how to prepare dumplings and also prepared other Taiwanese snacks for us. Thank you, it was delicious.
Dumpling party
Bravo Raphael!
LBB group retreat to Locarno
New PhD students
Greta Hazel Thompson Steckel started her PhD studies with us in September. She made her Master's degree at McGill university in Montreal, Canada and will be part of the "neuro team" at lbb.
Livie Dowrling Carter started her PhD studies in August. She will continue her work with the FuidFM, on which she already worked during her Master's project.
János Welcome Back
After 6 months in the USA at PennState university, we are happy to welcome Janos Vörös back to lbb!
Sangria tasting
Congratulations to Alexandre Larmagnac
Material and Processes (MaP) Symposium
SOLA 2014
G-Therapeutics awarded as jury's favorite at PERL 2014 in Lausanne
G-Therapeutics is changing the world of Tomorrow
New LBB members
Livie Dorwling-Carter started her PhD studies in August.
Csaba Forro started his PhD studies in May 2014. He did his Master studies at EPFL and already did very successfully his Master's project at lbb.
Dr. Klas Tybrandt started in April 2014 as postdoc in our group. He is Swedish and received his PhD in Organic Electronics at Linköping University.
Serge Weydert joined the lbb in March 2014. After getting his master degree at the ETH he successfully started his own spin-off company ABILITY Switzerland AG.
In February 2014 Dr. Volker Gatterdam (German, chemist) will started at LBB as a Roche postdoctoral fellow.
In the same month Raphael Tiefenauer, a Swiss master student from the university of Basel, started his PhD.
Goodbye party of Satoshi Fujita
Goodbye party of Prof. Vörös
G-Therapeutics awarded at Venture 2014
