Prof. em. Dr. Ernst Hafen

Ernst Hafen has made several contributions to the field of developmental biology and cell biology. These include the development of an in situ hybridatzion method and its application of the localization of transcripts from homeotic genes and segmentation genes, the characterization of genes and the corresponding signaling pathways involved in photoreceptor cell fate specification and in the control of cell and body size. He has received several prizes and has served on the Editorial Boards of version journals and scientific committees. He is a co-founder of the Genetics Company, a privately held biotech company in Zurich-Schlieren.

Ernst Hafen resigned from his position as President of ETH Zurich on 2.11.2006. He was appointed to this office in December 2005. Born in 1956 in St. Gallen, he studied molecular and cellular biology at the Biocenter in Basel. In 1983 he obtained his Ph.D. in developmental biology. Following a 3-year postdoctoral stay at the Department of Biochemistry at the University of California at Berkeley, he moved to the Institute of Zoology at the University of Zurich as an assistant professor in 1987; in 1994 he was promoted to associate professor and in 1997 to full professor.

In his research, Ernst Hafen studies genes involved in growth control and metabolism using drosophila as a model system. He has received several prestigious awards, including the Ernst Jung, the Friedrich Miescher, and the Otto Naegeli Award.

In the course of his academic career, Ernst Hafen was a member of the National Research Council, the representative of the professors at the Council of the University of Zurich, and a member of the editorial boards of several major journals, including the EMBO Journal.

He has helped develop joint centers of ETH and the University of Zurich, including SystemsX, Life Science Zurich, and Life Science Learning Center Zurich. Furthermore, Ernst Hafen is co-founder and scientific advisor of the biotech start-up The Genetics Company.