The 13 million francs, which were donated by Family August von Finck, the Nomis Foundation, the Monique Dornonville de la Cour Foundation and the Baugarten Foundation, will help the ETH strengthen its biomedical work.
Among the plans are the creation of a new professorship in the Department of Biology for at least the next ten years, the purchase of a new cryo-electron microscope, and the upgrade of the existing device.
Cryo-electron microscopes help examine how processes in healthy and sick cells differ from one another. Jacques Dubochet from the University of Lausanne made a particularly important contribution to the development of this technology and was presented with the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the achievement last year.
Thanks to the donors, “ETH researchers can examine the world of biomolecules with a never-before-seen precision,” commented ETH President Lino Guzzella in a statement.
