December

ETH researchers have teamed up with Kantonsspital Baden to find ways of preventing patients from becoming dependent on opioid painkillers.

With its highly qualified graduates, cutting-edge research and knowledge transfer, ETH Zurich exists to serve Swiss society. The university demonstrated this once again in 2023. ETH News looks back at an eventful year.

Working in a greenhouse is both strenuous and time-consuming. The picking robot from ETH spin-off Floating Robotics takes on particularly repetitive tasks, thereby alleviating the strain on human pickers. It is currently undergoing testing at Beerstecher AG in Hinwil.

Raphael Steiner received his doctorate in mathematics at the age of 21. Now the Swiss National Science Foundation is funding his research at ETH Zurich in the field of graph theory. Among other things, this involves proving a conjecture that is over 80 years old.

Snow measurement has never been so fast and accurate: ETH Zurich researchers have developed an artificial intelligence capable of determining snow depth across Switzerland using satellite images.

Researchers have trained an artificial intelligence to design the structure of so-called metamaterials with desired mechanical properties for a wide range of applications.

Surprisingly little is actually known about how the knee works. ETH professor Bill Taylor plans to change this with a unique technology and a new 22-metre-long experimental facility.  

ETH Zurich and the Dieter Schwarz Foundation have signed a far-reaching letter of intent to establish a new teaching and research centre for responsible digital transformation with a global reach. Thanks to the foundation’s donations, around 20 new professorships are to be created over the next 30 years in Zurich and on the foundation’s teaching campus in Heilbronn.

At its meeting of 6 and 7 December 2023 and upon application of Joël Mesot, President of ETH Zurich, the ETH Board appointed twelve professors and awarded the title "Professor of Practice" once.  

ETH Zurich researchers have shown for the first time that microvehicles can be steered through blood vessels in the brains of mice using ultrasound. They hope that this will eventually lead to treatments capable of delivering drugs with pinpoint precision.