Nobel Prize for a revolutionary method

Jacques Dubochet, professor emeritus of Lausanne University, was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2017, together with Joachim Frank and Richard Henderson. The three researchers played a key role in the development of biological cryo-electron microscopy, which is used to study samples that have been cooled down to below –150 degrees Celsius. The SNSF Research Councillor Kaspar Locher from ETH Zurich describes it as a revolutionary method thanks to which “we can now display cell structures and macromolecules with unbelievable precision”.

Between 1989 and 2007, Jacques Dubochet received financial support from the SNSF for ten projects in total. By that time, he had already developed cryo-electron-microscopy while working at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg.