News and Events

Wheat production is threatened by a major fungal disease: yellow rust. UZH researchers have found traditional wheat varieties from Asia that harbor several resistance-conferring genes. They may serve as a durable source of yellow rust resistance in commercial varieties in the future.

Prof. Dr. Ben Schuler from the Department of Biochemistry was elected as member of the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina

Dr. Mara Knüsel received during the Dies academicus the Jahrespreis 2025 of the Faculty of Science for her doctoral thesis "Opening the Black Box. Biodiversity and Biogeography of Groundwater Amphipods in Switzerland».

The Faculty of Science of the University of Zurich awards an Honorary Doctorate to Dr. Paula Kahumbu. She is a leading conservationist and wildlife advocate. Paula Kahumbu has gained international recognition for her research on elephants and her globally successful campain "Hand Off Our Elephants".

The Faculty of Science welcomes Prof. Dr. Paola Cerrito as assistent professor for Human Evolution at the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology. Her interests focus on better understand the evolution of human life history (patterns of growth, maintenance, and reproduction) and how it co-evolved with our social, behavioural, and cognitive adaptations.

The Faculty of Science welcomes Prof. Dr. Katharina Anna Wilmes as SNF Starting Grantee at the Department of Neuroinformatics. She leads the project “Neural mechanisms of perception and learning in uncertainty”.

Prof. Dr. Rémi Abgrall received the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Research Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. It has been granted in recognition of his outstanding accomplishments in research and teaching to date.

Prof. Dr. Laura Baudis was elected as an international member of the National Academy of Sciences. The National Academy of Sciences selected Laura Baudis in recognition of her outstanding and continuing achievements in basic research.

On Saturday, May 18, 2025, the Junior Euler Society awards ceremony took place at the University of Zurich (UZH). The event focused on over 100 young talents aged between 7 and 19 who have achieved outstanding results in various national and international science olympiads and competitions.

Drugs that affect DNA replication, or radiation that causes direct DNA damage, lead to increasingly diverse offspring over multiple cell generations. This increases the tumor’s genetic complexity and facilitates the development of resistance to therapy.

Vor 100 Jahren legte Erwin Schrödinger an der UZH die Basis für die Quantenmechanik. Physiker Titus Neupert zu Quantencomputern, neuen Sensoren und zur Stabilität von Tischen.

Biodiversity expert Florian Altermatt is the recipient of this year’s UZH Teaching Award. In the portrait below, he tells why he makes students count birds on Lake Zurich and divulges what that has to do with Pokémon.

When trees and soil fungi form associations with each other, both partners benefit. Many tree species even form symbioses with two different types of mycorrhizal fungi at the same time. They cope better with water and nutrient scarcity, which is an important trait for forestry in the face of climate warming.

A new exhibition on plant communication marks the inclusion of botany at the University of Zurich’s Natural History Museum. With the exhibition, which illustrates the diverse forms of communication among plants, the museums for anthropology, botany, paleontology and zoology have now been brought together under one roof.

Researchers have uncovered new insights into the evolution of cosexuality in plants by studying the genome of the liverwort Marchantia quadrata. Their findings reveal how sex chromosomes are reshaped when plants transition from separate sexes to cosexuality, providing a window into the broader mechanisms of sex chromosome evolution in plants.