Joël Bloch – Exploring unknown worlds with the microscope
Prix Schläfli 2023: Structural biology is, he believes, the "most attractive" of sciences. Joël Bloch has been awarded the Prix Schläfli in Biology for the dissertation he submitted to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich on special sugar molecules in cell membranes.
Anna-Katharina Pfitzner – Seeking fundamental answers
Prix Schläfli 2022: Small biological building blocks are her thing: biologist Anna-Katharina Pfitzner has researched a mechanism that is key to many processes in cell biology.
Image: Anna-Katharina Pfitzner
Gregor Weiss – Conquers mountains and bacteria
Prix Schläfli 2021: Gregor Weiss has two passions: mountain sports and biology. What connects the two? You can only reach your goal with perseverance and team spirit. This also applies to his work on the body's own defence against urinary tract infections, which earned him the Prix Schläfli award in biology.
Image: Miki Feldmüller
Alice Berhin – A new chapter in plant anatomy
Prix Schläfli 2020: People thought that there was nothing new to be discovered in plant anatomy. Au contraire, Alice Berhin discovered a kind of protective layer on the root tips of seedlings. This got her the Prix Schläfli award in Biology.
Image: Alice Berhin
Rebekka Wild - On protein and other structures
Prix Schläfli 2019: On a beautiful spring day such at ETH Hönggerberg, we sit outside at the café to talk. Rebekka Wild seems very relaxed, as if she had nothing more important to do than enjoy the sun. However, appearances are deceptive: she works pretty much 150 per cent of a normal working day, reads specialist literature in the evenings - and yes, sometimes even a book.
Image: Rossitza Irobalieva
Prix Schläfli 2018 in Biology: Hester Sheehan
Those who frequent nightclubs know that when they wear white, their clothes take on a special glow in UV light. But researchers took a long time to realise that plants have a very similar "nightlife": the ways in which the colours of flowers determine which pollinating insects and birds they will attract have long been an important field of research, but the researchers – who mostly worked during normal working hours – only focused on the situation during daylight, on bright and vibrant flowers and eyes that specialise in seeing colour. In her research work, Hester Sheehan also looked at the way this phenomenon works during the night: boring white petunias that appear midnight black in the UV spectrum. An eye-catcher for nectar-hunting moths that are active during the night.
