News
The following feed highlights activities and achievements of scientists from the MaP community.
Unraveling the chemistry of peatlands
Scientists from ETH Zurich’s Fraley Lab (D-CHAB) and Schölmerich Lab (D-USYS) have recently set out to study the peatlands of the UNESCO Entlebuch Biosphere Reserve in Switzerland. Their collaborative work is yielding new insights into the chemistry of protected peatland ecosystems. The project, recently featured in the magazine “Mein Entlebuch,” aims to contribute to well-founded conservation and restoration strategies that could mitigate the effects of global climate change.
You've tied thousands of knots. Science is still catching up.
Last week, MaP's Soft Talks series welcomed Prof. Pedro Reis from EPFL for a wonderfully tactile journey into the physics of knots -- something every one of us has fumbled with since childhood, yet which turns out to be a genuinely hard mechanics problem.
Heralded quantum interference in integrated lithium niobate
By making use of advanced nonlinearity engineering techniques, we implement a scheme of generating high-purity photon pairs directly on-chip.
Ranking: D-CHAB disciplines rank Top 10
ETH Zurich continues to rank among the 10 best universities in the world in a total of 16 subject areas, among them disciplines from D-CHAB: Chemical Engineering (rank 7) and Chemistry (rank 9).
Hot on the heels of fake drugs
The market for counterfeit medicines and plant-based oils is booming. Dr. Christian Steuer, pharmacist and now also Privatdozent at D‑CHAB, applies cutting‑edge chemical analytics and a detective’s intuition to expose such products. With new methods, he and his team uncover what remains hidden to others, ensuring that medicinal drugs do exactly what they are supposed to do: help people.
Cheap diagnostics for tropical diseases
Andrés Javier Bello-Hernández, doctoral student in the deMello Group (ICB), is working on a novel diagnostic device for dengue fever. The technology also holds potential for identifying other viral infections.
SCS Lecturship with Prof. T. Don Tilley from UC Berkeley
On March 24, 2026, Prof. T. Don Tilley will give his SCS lectureship award lecture on: «Metal-Mediated Ring Fusions in Scalable Syntheses of Conjugated Nanocarbons». The SCS Lectureship is awarded to world-class distinguished scientists, and it is organized under the patronage of the Swiss Chemical Society. The event is hosted by the Laboratory of Inorganic Chemistry D-CHAB.
Prof. Malte Gather visited ICB to deliver the ICB seminar
Professor Malte Gather (University of Cologne and University of St Andrews) gave an invited ICB seminar about organic light-emitting diodes and lasers for implant and in-vivo sensing applications.
The Estate of a Remarkably Orderly Nobel Laureate
Nobel laureate Richard R. Ernsts left behind not only groundbreaking insights into nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, but also a meticulously organized estate that includes many gems. The ETH University Archives has now made the estate accessible to the public.
