2024

Marie Schölmerich, professor for environmental microbiology and COPL member, is among the eight researchers who successfully applied for Starting Grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation via ETH Zurich.

For the first time, the Centre offers financial support to those wishing to organise and host workshops on topics relevant to the Centre. Applications may be submitted until Friday, 06 December 2024 17:00 CET via the COPL website.

This October, the Centre for Origin and Prevalence of Life at ETH Zürich welcomed three new postdoctoral fellows as part of the NOMIS–ETH Fellowship Programme. Sean Jordan, Taylor Priest and David Schnettler each explore critical aspects of the origin of life, its evolution and place in the broader cosmic context. 

The second edition of the Origins Federation Conference brought together in Cambridge its diverse and ever more consolidated scientific community. Researchers from the Centre for Origin and Prevalence of Life at ETH Zurich share their impressions. 

The 2024 call for applications for the NOMIS–ETH Fellowship Programme within the Centre for Origin and Prevalence of Life is open. Researchers are invited to apply until 8 November 2024, at 17:00 Zurich local time.

The second edition of the Origins Federation Conference will take place at the Møller Institute, University of Cambridge (UK), showcasing the latest research on life in our Universe.

We are pleased to announce that two new projects have been funded by the Centre for Origin and Prevalence of Life.

Congratulations to Tanja Stadler, head of the Computational Evolution Group at D-BSSE, on being elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO). The growing EMBO network promotes excellence in life sciences and shapes their direction in research, fosters the careers of young scientists and strengthens the research communities in Europe and beyond. This year, EMBO celebrates its 60^th anniversary.

The funding programme COST has recently approved a new Action aimed to promote the emerging field of Biogeodynamics: EUROBIG, the pan-European Biogeodynamics network. Thus, the upcoming SNSF call for research projects associated with COST Actions gives Swiss-based researchers the opportunity to apply for funding of EUROBIG-related research projects. 

Cara Magnabosco and her team study subsurface environments at BedrettoLab, focusing on simple life-​forms like bacteria surviving by "breathing rocks". They explore conditions for life emergence and survival, discovering rare microorganisms and conducting experiments to understand their lifestyle.