4 Up-and-coming Projects We Discovered at Industry Day

Every year at the start of September, the ETH Zurich Industry Relations Team invites partners and ETH affiliates to join them for the Industry Day on the Hönggerberg Campus. Dedicated to showcasing the latest science and research coming out of ETH, this is a great opportunity for industry to meet new talents and learn about their ideas. We spent the afternoon listening to the keynotes, case studies and speed talks they organized, and perused the exhibit of booths to find out more. Here are four projects that stood out for us; you can find out more about the others too on the Industry Relations Day website: https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/events/industry-day.html

The chemical industry actually faces similar issues to the energy industry, because of its reliance on fossil fuels. How do you achieve the goal of less fossil-based chemicals, and even go fossil-free? The mission of ETH Spin-off Biosimo is to provide an alternative to oil-based materials.

There is new building that has come up at Hönggerberg: the Zero Carbon Building Systems Lab (ZCBS). To reduce the environmental impact of buildings, apply renewable energies and adapt to future climate conditions, the Chair of Architecture and Building Systems at ETH Zurich have initiated this ground-breaking testing facility. It will enable them to simulate under real conditions new approaches and concepts, as well as imagine human-system interaction in the brave new world of next generation buildings.

Harmful forever-chemicals called PFAs have made their way into our drinking water, soil and food. Recently this problem has made it into the news more and more, resulting in a worldwide legislative effort to decontaminate wastewater. However, it's dirtied by more than the hard-to-remove PFAs. A large and varied base of pollutants is present in water all over the world. Oxyle presents a promising solution: Their technology is setting new standards for treating highly persistent and harmful pollutants present in wastewater. Could their smart catalyst be the key to this pressing issue?

This up and comer is for the more scientifically well versed: Lock and Key offer a Proteoshell, which makes the isolation of tricky proteins a walk in the park thanks to their novel technology. They also "specialize in molecular builder enzymes that catalyze asymmetric C-C bor formation". Besides that, Lock and Key has an enzyme portfolio for the preparation of a unique catalog of chiral molecules. Lock & Key Biosciences GmbH aims to empower the fine chemical industry with innovative and practical biocatalytic technologies of unprecedented reactivity and efficiency.

“NEXUS personalized health technologies is a core facility of ETH Zurich that specializes in data science, statistical data analysis, ‘omics’ support, laboratory automation and high-throughput screening. The team is comprised of staff scientists from different disciplines ranging from computer science and biology to statistics to support the research community within and outside ETH Zurich. The mission of NEXUS’ lab automation and screening group is to support scientists with assay development, assay miniaturization and high-throughput drug screening services. The state-of-the-art automation system allows for the testing of thousands of compounds or drugs, even on advanced biological models such as tumor-derived organoids. Automation of screens enables increased experimental quality, reduced hands-on time and improved experimental reproducibility. For more information about our services and how we can support your research, please reach out to us at https://www.nexus.ethz.ch.” - Courtesy of Tijmen Booij, ad interim Head of Theragnostics Discovery, NEXUS

Like every year, we were impressed with the level of innovation presented at the Industry Day. It's an excellent way to get a preview of the future. To quote ETH Zurich’s Vice President for Knowledge Transfer and Corporate Relations, Vanessa Wood: “co-creation is key.” We cannot achieve the mission of ETH to serve society without translating and transferring the science to industry.