News 2008
Here is a summary of the relevant stories for the year 2008.
Awarded Excellence in Lecturing
We are delighted by the announcement that our colleague, Dr. Alfredo Franco-Obregón, will be awarded this year's golden owl in the name of the department D-ITET. The students of ETH award this prize annually to lecturers who make exceptional efforts in teaching and are able to pass on the fascination for their subject to the students.
Congratulations again to Al! It has been quite an amazing week for you.
13.11.2008
The LBB in Space
Congratulations to Dr. Alfredo Franco-Obregón (Al), who helped to design an experiment that was selected for test a zero-gravity conditions. The project, entitled "Electrophysiological analysis of the effect of weightlessness on muscle development", is a collaboration between the Space Biology Group of the ETH, the Laboratory of Biosensors and Bioelectronics of the ETH and the University of Zurich, Physiological Institute.
Project Summary
Of the many physiological consequences of manned space flight, muscle atrophy is the most detrimental to the human condition. Currently applied countermeasures can only partially prevent the muscle loss associated with reduced gravitational forces. In hopes of devising more directed therapeutic interventions to prevent Space Atrophy we are examining the influence of microgravity on factors that promote muscle development. Of key interest is calcium, since it is an important activator of many necessary myogenic transcriptional cascades. This particular campaign investigated the influence of microgravity on calcium currents across the cell membrane using an electrophysiological recording apparatus specifically designed for use in microgravity.
12.11.2008
A New, But Familiar Addition to the LBB
Alexandre Larmagnac, a biomedical engineer from ETH Zurich, began his PhD with us this October. He will be developing in vivo stimulation electrodes for rehabilitation. Alexandre has already worked with the LBB for over a year on student projects and his Master project. We are pleased that he likes us and his work so much!
05.10.2008
Gold Again for an LBB Student!
Congratulations to Philipp Studer (former LBB Diploma student), who received the ETH medal for his diploma work! The project was entitled: "Microwells for Picoliter Assays and Membrane Protein Arrays". Credit also goes to Andreas Binkert for supervising him.
23.05.2008
Continued LBB Expansion
Yet again we wish to welcome our newest PhD students: Kaori Sugihara (Japan) majored in applied physics from the University of Tokyo will be working in an EU project called ASMENA dealing with nano-pore spanning lipid bilayers and membrane proteins. Pascal Behr (Switzerland) will be working on the nano-patch clamp and nano-injector AFM project.
05.05.2008
Poster Prize for Orane Guillaume-Gentil
Congratulations to Orane who received a poster prize at the annual meeting of the Competence Centre for Materials Science and Technology (CCMX) for her poster: "Cell Sheet Engineering Based on Electronically Addressable Polyelectrolyte Coatings"
09.04.2008
Growing Again
The members of the LBB our proud to welcome Norma Graf (Switzerland) and Raphael Zahn (Germany) as our newest PhD candidates.
01.04.2008