Swiss Biotech Report 2005

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14 «SWITZERLAND IS STILL... BASIC RESEARCH For Nobel Prize winner Kurt Wüthrich Switzerland still is a leading country in basic research in the area of life sciences. But there is one problem: the lack of money. How do you rate Switzerland as a location for basic research in life sciences Is the country ready for the challenges of the future Kurt Wüthrich: Switzerland is a small country, but nevertheless offers excellent research programmes in life sciences and other domains. Swiss universities have for the last 30 years been leaders in molecular biology and among them the University and the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich are today top players in the field of structural biology and very strong in protein chemistry. Does this mean that the conditions for basic research are good enough and Swiss science will remain a world leader Kurt Wüthrich: There is always something that can be improved… and at the moment no country can ever do enough in the promotion of life science research. If I compare our basic research to that in the USA or in Japan, Swiss researchers were treated much more generously 30 years ago than today. During the last ten years the financial support for basic research has stagnated in Switzerland, while in the USA and in Japan the budgets have doubled or tripled. Switzerland has to increase its funding for basic research not only in the area of life sciences, in order to remain one of the leaders. CENTRE OF COMPETENCE IN SYSTEMS BIOLOGY Between 2004 and 2007 the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, the University of Basle and the University of Zurich are establishing a centre of competence in systems biology. It will be the first of its kind in Europe and will represent a milestone in European life sciences basic research. Systems biology is an emergent field that aims at system-level understanding of biological systems. It is a working together of biologists, computer scientists, chemists, engineers, mathematicians, and physicists who speak and understand the languages of these different disciplines to facilitate the development of new global technologies and to integrate these with the data acquisition, storage, integration, and analysis tools of computational biology and mathematics. A major challenge is to give the technologists a deep understanding of biology and vice versa. In addition, the technologists, computer scientists and biologists must share a common language. This requires new approaches to describing and teaching biology. Together these technologies must be integrated with biology and medicine.
...AT THE TOP» 15 For the past few years you also have been working in the USA. Are the research budgets higher there because the Government spreads a lot of money Kurt Wüthrich: The system is completely different from ours. Basic research at US universities is much more competitive, because there are far fewer guaranteed funds. Scientists even have to bring in money to build the infrastructure at the research institutes… The overheads are high; at the institute where I am working they run at 87%! I don’t say that this is the best solution, but at least it supports competition. Here in Switzerland professorships are funded for ten to 30 years. Until now, this worked out well. But in future we need more money. Maybe we should think also about possible modifications of the system. Although the financial situation became worse, Swiss scientists are still leading the citation index. Kurt Wüthrich: Yes, and this reflects the high quality of our work. And I repeat it again: To stay at this top level in life sciences, basic research in Switzerland needs more money. This does not absolutely have to be given by the Government. In the USA, for example, a lot of money is given by private benefactors, in some cases by donations of a few hundred million dollars! Of course, one reason for this lies in the different tax laws; but I am sure we could also do something about this in Switzerland. Most of the time you were working in Switzerland. Would you have preferred to work in the USA, where biotechnology became a very important industry much earlier than here Kurt Wüthrich: No, the success that I have had together with my research groups is based on the Swiss system. In the late sixties and in the seventies Switzerland invested a lot of money in biological research, mainly into long-term projects. I remember that in certain universities and in the ETH the faculty was expanded several-fold. How do you rate Swiss basic research compared to that of other European countries A NOBEL PRIZE TRADITION Switzerland has only seven million inhabitants, but boasts various Nobel Prize laureates in life sciences: Werner Arber (Medicine, 1978), Heinrich Rohrer (Physics, 1986), Richard R. Ernst (Chemistry, 1991), Rolf Zinkernagel (Medicine, 1996) and Kurt Wüthrich (Chemistry, 2002). It can also be proud of the worldwide reputation of such scientists as BSE expert Charles Weissmann. Kurt Wüthrich: Switzerland is still at the top. Of course, the UK traditionally has centres of excellence in biosciences. Germany is bigger and the investments of the Max Planck society are unique. But the situation at the universities in Germany is not even as good as that in Switzerland. FACT FILE Name: Degree: Function: Kurt Wüthrich PhD in chemistry Professor of Biophysics, Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich; Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Visiting Professor of Structural Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, USA @ For further information please visit www.mol.biol.ethz.ch/wuthrich/
Page 2 and 3: 02 ONE NATION WITH REGIONAL CLUSTER
Page 4 and 5: 04 INCREASING NUMBER OF PATENTS 70
Page 6 and 7: 06 A PRIME BUSINESS LOCATION FOR...
Page 8 and 9: 08 INDUSTRY STATEMENTS ERNESTO BERT
Page 10 and 11: 10 Markus Moser: This process is a
Page 12 and 13: 12 WHAT KEEPS SWISS... THE INNOVATI
Page 16 and 17: 16 BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN... NETW
Page 18 and 19: 18 THE MOTOR OF ECONOMIC... HENRI B
Page 20 and 21: 20 THE SWISS BIOTECH INDUSTRY... IN
Page 22 and 23: 22 FINDING ANTIBODIES IN A EASIER W
Page 24 and 25: 24 «THE BIOTECH INDUSTRY... ROUNDT
Page 26 and 27: 26 FAST TRACK TO NEW DRUGS Dr Bo Ni
Page 28 and 29: 28 DOMENICO ALEXAKIS The Executive
Page 30 and 31: 30 MILESTONES IN... marked in red a
Page 32 and 33: 32 APPENDIX: FACTS AND FIGURES Many
Page 34 and 35: 34 BASLE ZURICH NUMBER OF BIOTECH C
Page 36: IMPRESSUM Steering Committee: Jürg

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