Michael Hengartner

Last updated
Michael Otmar Hengartner
Born (1966-06-05) June 5, 1966 (age 57)
St. Gallen, Switzerland
Education
OccupationPresident of the ETH Board
SpouseDenise Hengartner
Childrensix

Michael Otmar Hengartner (born 5 June 1966, St. Gallen, Switzerland) is a Swiss-Canadian biochemist and molecular biologist. [1] From February 2020 he has been president of the ETH Board. [2] Before that he was the president of the University of Zurich and president of the Swiss Rectors' Conference, swissuniversities. [1]

Contents

Early life and education

Hengartner was born in 1966, the son of a Swiss mathematics professor. The family moved first to Paris, later to Bloomington, Indiana and then to Quebec City, where he grew up.

He studied biochemistry at the Université Laval in Quebec, and graduated with a B.S. in 1988. He received a doctorate in 1994 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under H. Robert Horvitz. He then led a research group at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. [3]

Career

In 1997, he co-founded the biotech company Devgen. [4] In 2001, he was appointed to the newly established Ernst Hadorn Endowed Professorship at the Institute of Molecular Biology of the University of Zurich. [5] In 2008, he co-founded the scientific consultancy company Evaluescience. [4] From 2009 to 2014, he was Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of the University of Zurich; and from 2014 to 2019, rector of the University of Zurich. [6] Since 2019, he has been director of the ETH Board [7] and since 2009, a member of the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. [8] On February 1, 2020, he took up his position as President of the ETH Board. [9] In August 2020 Hengartner spoke about the Swiss lack of courage to "think big" despite investing heavily in education and basic research. He confirmed ETH Zurich's efforts to fostering a culture of innovation achieving faster market maturity of innovative products, especially in the area of digitization and climate. [10] In November 2021 Hengartner highlighted the concerns about the consequences of brain drain from Switzerland. [11]

In January 2022, Hengartner drew attention to Switzerland experiencing the first consequences of being excluded from Horizon Europe with top Swiss scientists losing leadership roles in Horizon projects and young scientists being denied internationally recognised grants and the resulting problems of attracting leading scientists. He emphasised the urgency for the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation to find alternative ways forward and for politicians to ensure its funding, but he also hoped for an EU agreement by the end of 2022. [12] [13] [14]

In February 2022, in run up to the Swiss referendum on animal testing, Hengartner stood his ground in a debate, emphasising that Swiss laws ranked human life higher than that of animals, which is a moral value people either do or don't share, but at the same time he also highlighted the resulting tightrope walk of balancing the benefit of research for humans against the suffering of animals. [15] In October 2022 Hengartner discussed Switzerland's scientific advantage through the high number of well-known residential scientists making it an attractive choice for the upcoming generation, but also referred to his concerns over the EU's decision to relegate Switzerland to a „non-associated third country“, robbing Switzerland of its position of influence in Horizon Europe, the EU's 7-year scientific research programme, as well as denying it access to future funding from the European Research Council. [16]

He is a member of the Swiss National Science Foundation. [17]

Private life

Hengartner is married to biologist Denise Hengartner. The couple has six children. [6]

Research interests

Hengartner is researching the molecular basis of apoptosis. He uses especially the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans as molecular organism. He is also investigating mechanisms of cancer, Alzheimer's and geriatric diseases. [1]

Awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard R. Ernst</span> Swiss physical chemist and Nobel laureate (1933–2021)

Richard Robert Ernst was a Swiss physical chemist and Nobel laureate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ETH Zurich</span> Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich

ETH Zurich is a public research university in Zürich, Switzerland. Founded by the Swiss federal government in 1854, it was modeled on the École polytechnique in Paris, with the stated mission to educate engineers and scientists; the school focuses primarily on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, although its 16 departments span a variety of disciplines and subjects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Zurich</span> Largest university in Switzerland, founded 1833

The University of Zürich is a public research university located in the city of Zürich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of theology, law, medicine which go back to 1525, and a new faculty of philosophy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Scherrer</span> Swiss physicist (1890–1969)

Paul Hermann Scherrer was a Swiss physicist. Born in St. Gallen, Switzerland, he studied at Göttingen, Germany, before becoming a lecturer there. Later, Scherrer became head of the Department of Physics at ETH Zurich.

Christoph Beat Graber (*1960) is a Swiss legal scholar and professor of legal sociology with particular focus on media law at the University of Zurich since 2015. He was previously a founding member of the Faculty of Law at the University of Lucerne and a consultant to various Swiss federal offices and the OECD on communication, cultural and copyright law issues.

WORLD.MINDS is a non-profit foundation set up in June 2008 by Rolf Dobelli, with the goal of creating "a bridge between the science, business and cultural communities".

The Swiss Finance Institute (SFI) is a national center for research, doctoral training, knowledge exchange, and continuing education in the fields of banking and finance. Created in 2006 as a public–private partnership, SFI is a common initiative of the Swiss finance industry, six leading Swiss universities, and the Swiss Confederation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ueli Maurer (cryptographer)</span> Swiss cryptographer

Ueli Maurer is a professor of cryptography at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erich Nigg</span> Swiss cell biologist

Erich Nigg is a Swiss cell biologist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Markus Affolter</span> Developmental Biologist

Markus Affolter is a Swiss Developmental Biologist and Professor at the Biozentrum University of Basel, Switzerland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andreas Plückthun</span> German biochemist (born 1956)

Andreas Plückthun is a scientist whose research is focused on the field of protein engineering. Andreas Plückthun is the director of the department of biochemistry at the University of Zurich. Plückthun was appointed to the faculty of the University of Zurich as a Full professor of biochemistry in 1993. Plückthun was group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Germany (1985-1993). He was elected to the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in 1992, and named a member of the German National Academy of Science (Leopoldina) in 2003. He is cofounder of the biotechnology companies Morphosys Molecular Partners AG and G7 Therapeutics..

Viola Vogel, also known as Viola Vogel-Scheidemann, is a German biophysicist and bioengineer. She is a professor at ETH Zürich, where she is head of the Department of Health Sciences and Technology and leads the Applied Mechanobiology Laboratory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ursula Röthlisberger</span> Professor of computational chemistry

Ursula Röthlisberger is a professor of computational chemistry at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. She works on density functional theory using mixed quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical methods. She is an associate editor of the American Chemical Society Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pablo Sinues</span>

Pablo Sinues is an associate professor at the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Basel and lecturer at the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences at ETH Zürich. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the Charles III University of Madrid (Spain) and Habilitation in Analytical Chemistry at ETH Zürich. Sinues heads the Translational Breath Research group located at the University Children’s Hospital Basel

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gudela Grote</span> German Psychologist and academic

Gudela Grote is a German psychologist and academic. She was educated in Germany and the United States, and established her career in Switzerland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sabine Werner</span> German biochemist

Sabine Werner is a German biochemist and professor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Collin Y. Ewald</span> Swiss molecular biologist

Collin Yvès Ewald is a Swiss scientist investigating the molecular mechanisms of healthy aging. He is a molecular biologist and a professor at ETH Zurich, where he leads the Laboratory of Extracellular Matrix Regeneration. His research focuses on the remodeling of the extracellular matrix during aging and upon longevity interventions.

Hans-Beat Bürgi is a Swiss chemist and crystallographer. He was a professor for crystallography at the University of Bern from 1979 to 2007.

Paola Picotti is an Italian biologist who is Professor for Molecular Systems Biology at ETH Zürich. She is Deputy Head of the Institute for Molecular Systems Biology. Her research investigates how the conformational changes of proteins impact cellular networks. She was awarded the 2020 ETH Zürich Rössler Prize and the 2019 EMBO Gold Medal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Schmid-Federer</span> Swiss politician

Barbara Schmid-Federer is a Swiss politician, educator, and philanthropist. A member of the Christian Democratic People's Party of Switzerland, she was elected to a seat in the National Council in 2007, serving until 2018. As a member of the National Council, Schmid-Federer spearheaded family policy and children's safety initiatives, including public breastfeeding and cyberbullying prevention in her platforms. She was appointed as president of Pro Juventute in 2019 and served in that capacity until 2022, when she assumed the role of Vice President. She served as President of the Swiss Red Cross between 2022 and 2023.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Curriculum Vitae Prof. Dr. Michael O. Hengartner" (PDF). Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften Leopoldina. Retrieved 23 November 2017.
  2. ↑ "Michael Hengartner appointed new president of the ETH Board". Swiss Federal Council. GS-EAER Communications.
  3. ↑ "Biography 38: Michael Otmar Hengartner (966 - )". Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Retrieved 4 December 2020.
  4. 1 2 "Election of Prof. Michael Hengartner as a New Member of the Board". NAGRA Kudelski Group. 25 March 2020. Retrieved 9 December 2020.
  5. ↑ Walter Bernet (2 February 2014). "Wir müssen Bologna bildungskompatibler machen". Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Retrieved 23 November 2017.
  6. 1 2 Mario Stäuble (25 June 2013). "Hi, I'm Michael". Tages Anzeiger. Retrieved 23 November 2017.
  7. ↑ "UZH - UZH News - Michael Hengartner Resigns as President of UZH" . Retrieved 2020-03-11.
  8. ↑ "Michael O. Hengartner". Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften Leopoldina. Retrieved 23 November 2017.
  9. ↑ Walter Bieri (4 September 2019). "Uni-Rektor Hengartner wird ETH-Ratspräsident". bluewin.ch. Retrieved 25 October 2022.
  10. ↑ René Donzé (15 August 2020). "Michael Hengartner: «Der Schweiz fehlt oft der Mut, gross zu denken»". magazin.nzz.ch. Retrieved 16 March 2023.
  11. ↑ "Horizon Europe: Swiss universities fear brain drain". swissinfo.ch. 15 November 2021. Retrieved 16 March 2023.
  12. ↑ Reza Rafi, Simon Marti (23 January 2022). "Wir erleben die ersten Rückschläge". blick.ch. Retrieved 30 March 2023.
  13. ↑ "Swiss universities warn of 'serious consequences' of Horizon Europe exclusion". swissinfo.ch. 23 January 2022. Retrieved 30 March 2023.
  14. ↑ Manuela Siegert (25 January 2022). "Wie Schweizer Spitzenforscher ausgebremst werden". srf.ch. Retrieved 30 March 2023.
  15. ↑ Helene Obrist (5 February 2022). "Wenn Emotionen auf geschliffene Politiker-Sätze prallen – das war die Tierversuch-«Arena»". watson.ch. Retrieved 4 April 2023.
  16. ↑ "Swiss researchers fear isolation". swissinfo.ch. 30 October 2022. Retrieved 4 April 2023.
  17. ↑ "Kudelski S.A." wsj.com. Retrieved 25 October 2022.
  18. ↑ "Ehrendoktorat Grosse Ehre aus Paris". UZH News. 17 October 2016. Retrieved 10 December 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.