The second All SystemsX.ch Day was a premiere at the same time. It took place within the framework of the «Life Sciences Week» in Basel and attracted 350 visitors interested by Systems Biology and SystemsX.ch in the Montreal Hall of the Congress Centre in Basel. The veteran of drosophila research, Walter Gehring, of University of Basel’s Biocentre also made a brief appearance; some of his students are involved in SystemsX.ch.

The exchanges between the participants were lively, the meeting even took on something like a family atmosphere. This time, a happily large number of 70 scientists from the pharmaceutical industry, biotechnology, and IT-companies found their way to SystemsX.ch. Perhaps a synergy effect with the technology fair «Life Sciences» which welcomed the impressive number of 2600 visitors. Dominique Michel and Richard Quaderer from Lonza in Visp are interested in ways to produce small molecules, today synthesized through organic chemical methods, by a (systemic) biological process. Pasquale Di Cesare of IBM Switzerland is impressed by the interdisciplinarity of Systems Biology in Switzerland. He came to get acquainted with the research conducted by potential clients of IBM.

Dieter Scholer, member of the University of Basel Council with an intimate knowledge of the life sciences scene in Basel, is delighted by the «overwhelming enthusiasm» with which the SystemsX.ch scientists get down to work. Hans-Peter Wessels, director of the business promotion department of Basel-City and Basel-Land and future state secretary of the Basel-City canton, praises SystemsX.ch as a model initiative to advance biology. SystemsX.ch’s network approach to address biological problems is exemplary, he says.

Poster Award 2008 - Winner

The Poster Award session took place in the in the afternoon, when a series of researchers presented new project ideas. Peter Meier-Abt, vice-rector of the University of Basel, handed over the prize for the best poster to the PhD student Rajesh Ramaswamy (ETH Zurich) for his illustration of protein recycling in the cell membrane.

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