Maria Balmer, Jessica Bastiaansen, Sofia Zambrano and Nicolas Detering are the researchers who will deepen their research at the University of Bern as part of the SNSF Eccellenza program. Their projects won the competition in a nationwide bidding process. Their scientific disciplines range from medicine to the humanities.

Support for new projects

The Eccellenza program is aimed at researchers who aspire to a permanent professorship and offers two variants: with the SNSF Eccellenza Professorial Fellowships, young talents can advance their research projects at the assistant professorship level by leading their own team and receiving financial support. The SNSF Eccellenza Grant also consists of very lucrative project funds, and is aimed at newly appointed tenure-track assistant professors. On average, awarded researchers receive CHF 1.6 million each over a period of five years.

Three Professorial Fellowships and one Grant

Out of 244 application dossiers received by the SNSF, 45 researchers were awarded support. We introduce four of them who will now be focusing on their projects at the University of Bern.

One of the Eccellenza Professorial Fellowships goes to the clinician-scientist Maria Luisa Balmer and her research project on human intestinal flora and its influence on obesity and diabetes. Under the title "Immunometabolic sensing of bacterial metabolites driving diet-induced obesity", she will investigate how intestinal flora is related to obesity, diabetes and other metabolic diseases.

Maria Balmer: "This project investigates the way in which metabolites produced by intestinal bacteria influence the development of obesity and diabetes and how the intestinal flora could be specifically modified to prevent these diseases."

A second Professorial Fellowship goes to Jessica Bastiaansen, who conducts research in the field of medical imaging technologies. In her project, the biomedical researcher will address the current challenges of low- and high-field magnetic resonance imaging. Jessica Bastiaansen: “I am going to develop a novel diagnostic imaging technology that will tackle current challenges of both low and high field MRI and will replace the need for conducting invasive biopsies in patients.” 

She will conduct her project "Quantitative magnetic resonance biopsies: Exploiting signal asymmetries for next-generation noninvasive biomarker mapping" at the University Institute of Diagnostic, Interventional and Pediatric Radiology (DIPR) at Inselspital, University Hospital Bern, and sitem-insel.

Sofia Zambrano will also receive a Professorial Fellowship to perform her research at the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM). The social scientist studies the role of emotions in the practice of medicine with a special emphasis on how emotions affect the communication between physicians and patients at the end of life. 

Sofia Zambrano: "Despite initiatives to teach communication skills to physicians, patients and their families are still often not adequately informed about the severity of their illness in the end of life context. Although emotions and the inner life of the physician can significantly influence this communication, their impact remains, to this day, largely unexplored."

Her project now aims to provide a deeper understanding of the role of emotions in the practice of medicine in order to improve communication with patients and their families at the end of life.

An Eccellenza Grant is being awarded to Nicolas Detering, who is already an assistant professor with tenure track at the Institute of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Bern. His research in literary studies will also receive very lucrative project funding. 

Detering's team will examine how premodern Christian literature was transformed after the 18th century. Nicolas Detering: "Tracing the reception of spiritual songs, martyr plays and hagiography, the project aims to analyze how medieval and early modern genres and other literary patterns still shape our understanding of sanctity today.”