Viola Vogel Photo

Prof. Viola Vogel

Viola Vogel is a Professor in the Department Health Sciences and Technology (D-HEST), heading the Laboratory for Biologically Oriented Materials at the ETH

Zurich. After completing her graduate research at the Max-Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry (Profs. Hans Kuhn and Dietmar Möbius), she received her PhD in Physics at the Johann-Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main, followed by two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California Berkeley, Department of Physics (Prof. Y. Ron Shen) where she applied nonlinear optical techniques to analyze fluid interfaces. She became an Assistant Professor in Bioengineering at the University of Washington/ Seattle in 1991, with an Adjunct appointment in Physics. She launched a new program in Molecular Bioengineering, and was later promoted to Associate (1997) and Full Professor (2002). She was the Founding Director of the Center for Nanotechnology at the University of Washington (1997-2003), and moved to the ETH in 2004.

Her work has been internationally recognized with several awards, including the Otto-Hahn Medal 1988; NIH FIRST Award from General Medicine 1993 - 1998; Philip Morris Foundation Research Award 2005; Julius Springer Prize 2006 for Applied Physics, and the European Research Council Advanced Investigator Award 2008, and by services for international organizations, including the Human Frontier Science Program, the British Marshall Fund, the Humboldt Foundation, the Volkswagen Foundation, the US Government (White House, National Research Council; NASA, NIH, NSF, DOE, Selection and Scheduling committee for the Gordon Research Conferences), and the German Government (BMBF). She has also served on various scientific advisory boards.

Cell Forces

Biologically Oriented Materials

The Laboratory of Biologically Oriented Materials focuses on deciphering how biological nanosystems work, with the goal of translating fundamentally new insights into the inner workings of biological nanosystems into a next generation of (biomedical) technologies. We are particularly interested in learning how cells sense mechanical forces and translate mechanical forces into biochemical signals which ultimately regulate cell fate. Applications are found in the development of hybrid materials and devices where biological molecules are integrated into micro and nanofabricated infrastructures, as well as in deriving novel ways to prevent bacterial adhesion and infection under flow conditions, and finally in developing insights into how to better design a next generation of soft tissue scaffolds which better mimic the multi-faceted functions of the native extracellular matrix.

As the questions addressed require expertise from many disciplines, we are integrated into a network of national and international collaborations. Most importantly, our group members have various academic backgrounds (bioinformatics, bioengineering, biochemistry, cell biology, chemistry, electrical engineering, microbiology, material sciences, molecular biology, pharmacy and physics). We are constantly searching for new technologies which help address fundamental challenges at the interface between biology and the synthetic world. While the laboratory is headed by Viola Vogel, Heike Hall (Dr. habil.) leads the efforts focused on developing new scaffolds for drug delivery and tissue engineering. Various industrial partners play significant roles in helping us to translate discoveries into various applications. Former group members have found academic positions at various Universities and Institutes, including the University of Washington (Bioengineering), Columbia University NY (Biomedical Engineering), University of Texas at Austin (Biomedical Engineering), Boston University (Biomedical Engineering), The Translational Genomic Research Institute (TGen) in Phoenix, University of Tampere (Medical Technology, Finland), Cornell University (Materials), and Colombia Bogotá (Physics).

Research Achievements

The first studies in which single molecules were mechanically stretched, published in 1997, inspired a decade of exciting new insights into the mechanical aspects of biomolecules. These advances thus open totally new ways by which we can start to explore at the nanoscale how cells interact with biological and synthetic materials. This includes deciphering the various design principles by which cell-induced stretching of extracellular and intracellular proteins might switch their structure-function relationship (mechano-chemical switches). Our goal is to establish whether and how cells take advantage of force-induced protein unfolding processes to regulate various physiological functions. Proteins are stretched, for example, if bacteria try to adhere to surfaces under fluid flow, or when cells pull on their microenvironments. We have already been able to show that cells can unfold extracellular matrix proteins by applying traction forces, and have reported for the first time that catch-bond-forming receptor-ligand complexes exist which help bacteria to adhere to surfaces under flow. Since tensile mechanical force can stabilize proteins in otherwise short-lived structural intermediates, deciphering how the structure/function relationship of proteins is altered by mechanical forces is prone to open totally new avenues in cell biology, tissue engineering, biotechnology, systems biology, pharmaceutics and medicine. Finally, we develop micro- and nanofabrication technologies to build a nanoscale assembly line, where cargo is driven by biological motors along engineered tracks. Putting nanoscale systems back together (via sequential assembly) is the final proof that one understands how they function in synchrony.

Current Research Projects

• Nano Shuttles: Motor Proteins in Engineered Environments

• Bacterial Adhesion to Surfaces

• Tissue Engineering

• Mechanotransduction

Department Health Sciences and Technology (D-HEST)


Laboratory for Biologically Oriented Materials
ETH Zurich

Wolfgang-Pauli-Strasse 10, HCI F443 (Hönggerberg)
CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland
Phone +41 44 632 08 87 / Fax +41 44 632 10 73
Email viola.vogel@hest.ethz.ch