FMI News Archive
A taste for innovation
When Cornelia Habacher finished her PhD, she knew she loved science, but she also felt a growing urge to make a more direct impact on the world beyond academia. That drive led her to co-found Rebel Meat, a start-up aimed at reducing meat consumption through hybrid meat products. ...
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Government councilor Mustafa Atici visits the FMI
We recently had the pleasure of welcoming an important politician from Basel at the FMI: Mustafa Atici, Member of the Executive Council of the Canton of Basel-Stadt and Head of the Department of Education. He was accompanied by Dr. Ariane Bürgin, Head of Higher Education. Ou...
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Shaping the gut: how tissue mechanics drives intestinal organoids formation
FMI researchers have shed light on how intestinal organoids form crypts, the pockets that house stem cells for gut regeneration and long-term stability. Their findings may have broader implications for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine....
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Charting gene secrets: New insights into genetic switches
Gene regulation underpins nearly every biological process—from cell development to responses to environmental changes, and understanding it can provide insights into cancer and other diseases. Now, FMI researchers have made significant progress in uncovering how transcripti...
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Exploring metabolism and mentorship: A chat with Anupama Hemalatha
We spoke to Anupama Hemalatha, FMI’s newest group leader, whose research explores how metabolic pathways regulate cell behavior using live imaging. She shared the origins of her passion for science, what drew her to the FMI, and why mentorship is so important to her....
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FMI Year in Review 2024
The year 2024 marked a new chapter for the FMI as we moved from our longtime home in Kleinbasel to a new cutting-edge research facility on the Novartis campus. Learn more about our move, Opening and other events, as well as our key 2023 scientific publications and facts & fig...
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Announcing recipients of early-career fellowships and grants
We are excited to announce the latest recipients of early-career research fellowships and grants, including the European Molecular Biology Organization Postdoctoral Fellowships and Boehringer Ingelheim Funds PhD Fellowships. These highly competitive awards, aimed at PhD students ...
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Sabine Reither: Supporting research and advocacy
Sabine Reither, a research associate at FMI’s Facility for Advanced Imaging and Microscopy, shares her passion for supporting researchers, her goals as a newly elected employee representative, and her creative pursuits in photography....
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Decoding protein interactions: A step toward personalized medicine
Investigating how proteins interact is key to understand how cells work and communicate. In a new study — the first of its kind to examine the effects of all possible mutations in a protein across interactions with its partners, FMI researchers have provided key insights in...
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New tool to map protease specificity may pave the way for improved treatments
FMI researchers have developed a new tool that maps how proteases —enzymes that process proteins— cut their targets. This innovation offers new insight into the highly selective nature of proteases, which were previously seen as indiscriminate degraders. The work coul...
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Rainer Friedrich receives ERC Synergy Grant to study mechanisms of intelligent behavior
Rainer Friedrich, a senior group leader at the FMI, is part of a team of researchers awarded an ERC Synergy Grant for their project, “Neuronal implementation of cognitive maps for navigation.” The €10 million grant will fund a six-year study into how zebrafish re...
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Laure Plantard: A journey through microscopy, mountains and inclusion
In this interview, we spoke with Laure Plantard, a research associate at the FMI’s Facility for Advanced Imaging and Microscopy (FAIM). With a strong passion for hands-on work, Laure found her niche in supporting researchers with microscopy techniques, while also being comm...
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Video: Uncovering the complex roles of transcription factors in gene regulation
Throughout their lifespan, cells must continuously activate and deactivate genes. This process is regulated by transcription factors, a class of proteins that control gene expression by binding to DNA. However, binding is complex due to the tightly compacted structure of DNA, whi...
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Yeast chit-chat: How microorganisms talk food shortages
To grow and survive, tiny organisms such as yeast must sometimes adapt their nutrient sources in response to changes in the environment. FMI researchers have now found that yeast cells communicate with each other to use less favorable nutrients if they foresee a shortage of their...
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FMI Science Prizes — winners 2024
On September 18-20, the FMI hosted its Annual Meeting, bringing together the institute’s entire scientific community in the iconic Gehry Building on the Novartis Campus in Basel. A key highlight of the event was the award ceremony for the FMI internal science prizes, celebr...
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Video: Homing in on the role of chromatin organization in gene regulation
Chromatin is a structure in the cell nucleus that helps pack DNA tightly by wrapping it around proteins called histones. These DNA-protein units, called nucleosomes, control how genes are turned on or off by allowing or blocking DNA access to factors that regulate gene activity. ...
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The FMI unveils state-of-the-art research facility on Novartis Campus in Basel
On August 23, 2024, the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI) celebrated the opening of its new, ultramodern research center on the Novartis Campus in the presence of some 100 guests from politics, business and the life sciences sector. At the heart of the ce...
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Exploring the frontiers of infection: a chat with Selma Dahmane
Selma Dahmane is FMI’s newest group leader, leading a team of researchers who will investigate how cells defend themselves against viral invaders. Selma talks about her fascination with infection biology, the research questions her lab is tackling, and a fictional conversat...
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Empowering female scientists at the intersection of research and innovation
The feminno programme, a pioneering initiative designed to foster female innovation and career development in science, has launched a new call for applications. The FMI will continue to subsidize the participation of successful applicants, highlighting the institute's commitment ...
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Basel honors Prisca Liberali with prestigious Science Prize
The City of Basel has awarded this year's Science Prize to FMI senior group leader Prisca Liberali in recognition of her groundbreaking research on the collective properties of developmental and regenerative systems. The award, valued at 20,000 Swiss Francs, is presented annually...
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Inspiring the next generation of scientists
On June 4 and 5, we welcomed more than 100 high-school students for a two-day event featuring biomedical research education and hands-on activities, including building brain-inspired circuits....
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Video: New light-sheet microscope for multicellular systems unveiled
Researchers at the FMI and Viventis Microscopy teamed up to develop a cutting-edge light-sheet microscope that has the potential to transform imaging studies and enable scientific breakthroughs....
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Prisca Liberali to hold double appointment at FMI and ETH Zurich
Prisca Liberali, a senior group leader at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI), joins the Basel-based Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE) of ETH Zurich as a Professor of Multicellular Systems. While continuing her appointment at the...
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New small molecule helps scientists study regeneration
Regenerating damaged tissues or organs has been a dream of scientists for decades. Now, researchers at the FMI and Novartis Biomedical Research have discovered a new molecule that activates a protein involved in regeneration. The tool holds promise for advancing our understanding...
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Prisca Liberali receives International Suffrage Science Award
FMI senior group leader Prisca Liberali received the 2024 International Suffrage Science Award for Life Sciences. The award recognizes the exceptional contributions of female scientists worldwide....
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Largest study of developmental microRNA dynamics uncovers mechanism of their regulation
Gene expression is controlled by numerous small RNA molecules called microRNAs, or miRNAs. However, specific functions of most miRNAs remain poorly understood. Working in worms, FMI researchers created an encyclopedia of miRNA dynamics during development, uncovering mechanisms of...
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Congratulations to our 2023 fellows and prize winners
Throughout the year, FMI researchers secure competitive grants and fellowships, underscoring the caliber and promise of their work. In this overview, we present FMI postdocs and PhD student who have been recipients of fellowships, grants, and awards in 2023 that will provide supp...
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‘Mini-placentas’ shed light on early events that are key for a successful pregnancy
The placenta provides oxygen and nutrients to a growing baby, but its early interactions with a mother’s uterus remain an enigma. Working with lab-grown versions of developing placentas, FMI researchers have shed light on some of the mechanisms underlying the earliest stage...
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FMI 2023 Year in Review
Learn more about our institute’s key 2023 scientific publications, events, projects, and facts & figures in this short, interactive PDF publication, which is also available in print....
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Cracking the secrets of virus ‘uncoating’ may help fight infections
Influenza and other viruses pack their genetic material into a protein shell, which must be disassembled for the viruses to efficiently replicate. But how viruses ‘uncoat’ their genes remains largely unknown. Now, FMI researchers have identified crucial features of th...
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Wishing you a happy holiday season and a wonderful new year
As we approach the end of 2023, the FMI extends warm wishes to you and your loved ones for a joyful and festive holiday season. This time of the year provides a great opportunity to reflect on the accomplishments and milestones achieved, and we want to express our gratitude for y...
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Zuzanna Kozicka awarded Science & SciLifeLab Prize for Young Scientists
Zuzanna Kozicka, a former PhD student in the Thomä lab at the FMI, is the grand prize winner in molecular medicine of the 2023 Science & SciLifeLab Prize for Young Scientists. Kozicka was recognized for her work on molecular glue degraders, small molecules that ...
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In remembrance of Thomas Hohn
It is with great sadness that we share the news that Thomas Hohn passed away last week, aged 85. Thomas was a group leader at the FMI for 25 years and Titular professor at the Botanical Institute of the University of Basel. He was a pioneer in plant molecular biology and made fun...
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Charlotte Soneson: embracing the command line
Spotlight on FMIers showcases the lives, work and passions of the institute’s researchers and support staff. Charlotte Soneson, a member of the FMI Computational Biology Platform, told us about her career path in a field that is dominated by men and discussed efforts to bui...
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Expectation vs. Reality: study maps the neurons that tell the difference
When our expectations differ from reality, specific sets of brain cells are activated. Working in mice, FMI researchers have characterized these neurons based on their gene-expression patterns, paving the way for a better understanding of some of the neuronal deficits associated ...
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Video: How AI can help uncover the way memory works
A symphony of electrical signals and a dynamic tangle of connections between brain cells help us to make new memories. Using AI-powered models of groups of neurons, FMI researchers are working towards unlocking how the brain orchestrates this dance. Their latest study has achieve...
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Small molecules to treat big diseases
Despite leaving behind thousands of deformed infants, thalidomide — and newer drugs derived from it — have proved effective cancer treatments. Researchers in the group of Nicolas Thomä at the FMI provided key insights into the mechanism of action of thalidomide-l...
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Nicolas Thomä leaving the FMI
Nicolas Thomä, who has been a group leader at the FMI since 2006, has decided to take on a new role as Full Professor at the Faculty of Life Sciences of the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), where he will hold the Paternot Chair in Interdi...
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FMI science prizes — winners 2023
The FMI just held its three-day “Annual Meeting” with all the institute’s scientists in the Swiss alpine resort Davos. As every year, a highlight of the event was the award ceremony for the three FMI internal science prizes — recognizing respectively the b...
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From postdoc to entrepreneur
After a 1.5-year postdoc in the Liberali lab — where he co-developed and tested a new microscope to track the development of organoids in real time — Andrea Boni co-founded a company that provides live-imaging systems based on a revolutionary microscopy technology. Si...
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Mouse study sheds light on how antipsychotics work
Antipsychotic drugs are used to treat and manage symptoms of many psychiatric disorders, but their mechanisms of action remain a mystery. FMI researchers found that antipsychotics reduce long-range communication within a specific layer of the brain cortex — a finding that m...
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Luca Giorgetti elected as EMBO Member
Today, the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) announced that Luca Giorgetti, Senior group leader at the FMI, has been elected as EMBO member. Giorgetti is among the 69 new members and associate members joining the EMBO community of more than 2,000 leading life scienti...
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Zeroing in on how the ‘guardian of the genome’ works
The tumor suppressor protein p53 has been dubbed the ‘guardian of the genome’ because it protects the DNA from stress or long-term damage by regulating the expression of numerous genes involved DNA repair, cell division and cell death. Now, FMI researchers have homed ...
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Molecular ‘hub’ regulates gene-silencing proteins
To keep their vital functions in balance, many organisms use small snippets of RNA to ‘silence’ messenger RNAs that code for certain proteins. New research from FMI scientists revealed a molecular hub that integrates the activities of different protein complexes invol...
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Zuzanna Kozicka: diversity in science and ‘molecular glues’
Spotlight on FMIers showcases the lives, work and passions of the institute’s researchers and support staff. We talked to FMI PhD graduate Zuzanna Kozicka about her efforts to promote equity, diversity and inclusion in science, her work on ‘molecular glues’, and...
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Building face structures by remote control
Craniofacial birth defects, including cleft lip and palate, are among the most common human congenital malformations. Now, FMI researchers have identified a DNA region containing multiple regulatory elements that interact with genes across distant chromosomal neighborhoods, ensur...
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Video: Embryo-like models help map early stages of development
An organism’s body plan arises through a process called gastrulation, during which the embryo forms three distinct layers of cells that will later give rise to all organs. Now, FMI researchers have mapped the development of three-dimensional clusters of cells that mimic asp...
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Revealing how an embryo’s cells sync up
Scientists have known that when a mouse embryo is developing, the cells that will become its spine and muscles switch specific genes on and off repeatedly, in a synchronous fashion. However, there are deep mysteries about how these cells synchronize. FMI researchers have now deve...
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The double-helix 70 years on: five FMI studies that helped decipher the DNA
On April 25, 1953 an iconic research paper was published in the journal Nature: the description of the double-helix structure of the DNA, by James Watson and Francis Crick. Their study revolutionized the field of molecular biology and laid the foundation for modern genetics and g...
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Cell mapping and 'mini placentas' shed light onto human pregnancy
For the first time, researchers have mapped the full trajectory of placental development. Their work could offer new insights into pregnancy disorders and help develop better experimental models of the human placenta....
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Congratulations to our 2022 fellows
FMI researchers are awarded competitive grants and fellowship throughout the year, which speaks for the quality and potential of their work. Here we present FMI postdocs and other young scientists who received fellowships, grants, and prizes in 2022 that will support their resear...
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Luca Giorgetti receives SNSF Consolidator Grant
Today the SNSF (Swiss National Science Foundation) announced the recipients of the SNSF Consolidator Grants 2022, a transitional funding measure aimed at researchers who planned to apply for an ERC Consolidator Grant in 2022. FMI group leader Luca Giorgetti is among the grantees;...
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Translating an RNA boosts its degradation
In the cell, messenger RNAs — or mRNAs — are translated into proteins and eventually degraded, but the relationship between translation and mRNA decay remains cloudy. FMI researchers developed an innovative tool to control and visualize mRNA translation and decay, one...
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FMI 2022 Year in Review
In 2022, life at the FMI snapped back into pre-pandemic normality — a normality where our institute is buzzing and people are meeting in person, where scientific and social events play a prime role, and where visitors of all ages are welcome. As always, our scientists were ...
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Identified: components of the molecular clock that helps some animals shed their skin
Shrimps, flies and other animals shed their outer body covering at specific times of the year or at specific points in their life cycles through a process called molting. Working in worms, FMI researchers identified the mechanisms underlying a molecular ‘molting clock&rsquo...
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Becoming a lab head
In this new series, we feature FMI alumni and the diverse careers they have chosen after leaving our institute. We begin with Sabine Krabbe who was a postdoc in the Lüthi group for eight years. In 2020, she started her own lab at a leading institute for brain research in Ger...
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How cells choose between two fates
Our body is made of billions of cells that have the same overall genome but play specialized roles to create different tissues and organs. Working in a freshwater invertebrate, FMI researchers found that a protein called Zic4 drives the formation and maintenance of the tentacles ...
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Time to part: how to produce sex cells with the right number of chromosomes
FMI researchers have honed in on a key process that happens when yeast cells divide to form gametes, which are the equivalents of human sperm and egg. Their work suggests that proteins conserved from yeast to humans ensure the production of gametes with the right number of chromo...
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Video: Mighty proteins keep DNA regions close for longer
New work by FMI researchers shows that key proteins help to stabilize the interaction between otherwise highly dynamic DNA structures. The findings shed light onto how the complex folds that help to fit nearly two meters of DNA into the cell’s nucleus influence important bi...
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How chemical modifications on DNA keep genes off
Several diseases, including certain types of cancer and some neurodevelopmental conditions, have aberrant patterns of DNA methylation, a chemical modification that regulates gene expression in ways that keep genes in the ‘off’ position. FMI researchers found that DNA ...
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Marilyn Vaccaro: three decades of supporting scientists
Spotlight on FMIers showcases the lives, work and passions of the institute’s researchers and support staff. We talked to Human Resources associate Marilyn Vaccaro — one of FMI's longest serving employees — about how work practices and people at the institute ha...
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FMI science prizes — winners 2022
The three FMI internal science prizes are awarded yearly and recognize respectively the best thesis, the best postdoc study and an ingenious new method or tool. The prizes 2022 were awarded last week at the FMI Annual Meeting, in Grindelwald, in the Swiss Alps. Read more about th...
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Elements of scientific success
FMI Director Dirk Schübeler is one of the four top scientists who were interviewed for a Novartis live.magazine article about the elements of scientific success. Schübeler expresses his concern that researchers in Switzerland – notably at the FMI – do not ha...
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Jumping into the unknown
Prisca Liberali and her team have developed new tools to study how cells self-organize into systems, paving the way for a deeper understanding of biology and medicine. Risk-taking and a keen sense of competition have served Liberali as a compass in her scientific quest, which, sh...
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Filippo Rijli elected to Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei
Filippo M. Rijli, group leader at the FMI and Professor in Neurobiology at the University of Basel, has been elected Member of the Italian Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, one the world’s oldest and most prestigious scientific academies....
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PhD reps: the voice of our students
Spotlight on FMIers showcases the lives, work and passions of the institute’s researchers and support staff. We spoke to the current PhD reps to learn about their work and activities — and what they enjoy the most about their role....
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Video: Watching how cells deal with stress
FMI researchers developed an imaging approach that allowed them to visualize individual molecules involved in the cell’s response to stress. Watch this video to find out more....
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Prisca Liberali awarded EMBO Gold Medal 2022
Prisca Liberali, a research group leader at the FMI and Professor at the University of Basel, receives the Gold Medal of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). She is recognized for her exceptional contributions to understanding the formation of intestinal organoids ...
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Andreas Lüthi receives SNSF Advanced Grant
Andreas Lüthi has been awarded a highly endowed Advanced Grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). This new transitional grant scheme is aimed at researchers who intended to apply for an ERC grant. Lüthi’s project addresses the fundamental question ...
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Iskra Katic: what worms can teach us about life
Spotlight on FMIers showcases the lives, work and passions of the institute’s researchers and support staff. Iskra Katic, head of the FMI C. elegans facility, tells us about her job and how a tiny worm can help researchers understand the building blocks of life....
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How animals reach their correct size
Even small differences in how fast animals grow during development can sum up to large differences in their adult body size. Nevertheless, adults of the same species are usually nearly identical in size. Benjamin Towbin, a postdoc in the Grosshans lab who is now at Uni Bern, disc...
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What it is like to be a researcher
Over 200 high school students visited the FMI to learn more about biomedical research and the everyday life of a researcher. The goal of the event was to help the student better understand what it really means to work in research so that they can take more informed decisions abou...
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Thwarting cellular enzyme can fight viral infections
FMI researchers have identified a synthetic protein that dampens the activity of a cellular pathway involved in viral infection. The findings could help to develop drugs that combat viruses such as influenza A and Zika....
Read MoreNicolas Thomä receives the Otto Naegeli Prize 2022
Nicolas Thomä, a research group leader at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI) in Basel, receives the Otto Naegeli Prize for Medical Research, one of the most prestigious scientific awards in Switzerland. Thomä is recognized for his groundbreak...
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Structural insights into the assembly of cilia
Cilia, the little “hairs” attached to almost all cells of the human body, play a role in various cellular functions and cause diseases called ciliopathies when they are defective. Researchers from the group of Patrick Matthias and the FMI Structural Biology platform d...
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