Anyone who owns a smartphone, uses social media or drives a “smart” car unwittingly reveals a lot about themselves. Even data that doesn’t seem sensitive today could in future allow unforeseen conclusions to be drawn about a person’s health, as ethicist Christophe Schneble of the Institute for Biomedical Ethics of the University of Basel explains in this interview.
Botond Roska, Professor at the University of Basel and Director of the Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel (IOB), will receive the Körber European Science Prize for 2020. The award, worth EUR 1 million, is one of the most prestigious science prizes for researchers in Europe.
The company Artidis, a University of Basel spin-off, has announced that it developed a test procedure that can detect breast cancer with a very high sensitivity. This is demonstrated by a clinical trial that investigated whether a nanomechanical biomarker of tissue samples is suitable for the diagnosis of breast cancer.
On 19 June, the Federal Council communicated further relaxation steps. The situation is now classified as "special" and no longer as "extraordinary". In an interview, President Andrea Schenker-Wicki explains how the University is preparing for the autumn semester and what challenges will have to be overcome in the coming months.
How can we protect communications against “eavesdropping” if we don’t trust the devices used in the process? This is one of the main questions in quantum cryptography research. Researchers at the University of Basel and ETH Zurich have succeeded in laying the theoretical groundwork for a communication protocol that guarantees one hundred percent privacy.
A survey conducted at the University of Basel and the Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Basel has investigated how sleep has changed during the Covid-19 lockdown. The 435 individuals surveyed – most of whom were women – reported sleeping longer while sleep quality deteriorated. The results of the study were published in the scientific journal Current Biology.
Professor Maria Hondele will be the new assistant professor for biochemistry at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel. The University Council promoted Professor Nicola Gess for German studies, Professor Martino Poggio for Nanotechnology, Professor Rainer Greifeneder for social psychology, and Professor Sarah Lein for economy, all on 1 August 2020.
Economist Robert Stelter investigates the long-term interplay of economic and demographic trends. The President’s Board of the University of Basel has appointed him as the Faculty of Business and Economics’s new assistant professor of Quantitative Economic History (Cliometrics). The five-year professorship is financed by the Max Geldner Foundation.
In a year’s time, Professor Ivan Martin will take over the direction of the Department of Biomedicine (DBM) as the successor to Professor Radek Skoda. The DBM has grown and increased its academic strength under Skoda’s leadership. In an interview, Martin explains how he plans to ignite the second stage of propulsion.
