Inside Cancer

Cancer continues to be one of the leading causes of death and one of the biggest challenges facing medical research. In recent years, however, major breakthroughs have been made – thanks mainly to new basic research findings in biology, we are gaining an ever greater understanding of how cancer occurs and how cancer cells function.

The quantitative biologist Bernd Bodenmiller, for example, can generate images of tissue that show how cells interact and communicate. This allows tumors to be analyzed with increasing precision and combated more efficiently. Precision medicine is the term for medical care that combines differentiated diagnoses and bespoke treatment.

UZH researchers are doing groundbreaking work in this area: The new UZH Magazin takes us on a journey through precision medicine at UZH and the University’s hospitals. The two UZH Magazin editors, Thomas Gull and Roger Nickl, observed innovative researchers and physicians at work and asked them about precision medicine’s current capabilities and future potential.

The current issue is the first with the new look: UZH Magazin, the University of Zurich’s academic magazine, has been totally revamped. With the new format and layout, the magazine is easier to handle, has more variety, and is more colorful. The size is slightly smaller, and the layout is less crowded and more flexible with greater use of color and larger pictures. Reading it will therefore be, we hope, an even more informative, entertaining and pleasurable experience. A majority of the articles are now also available in English for the first time – not in the print copy, but online.

We haven’t thrown the baby out with the bathwater though – the “Dossier” section continues to form the core of the magazine, each time taking an in-depth look at one important topic being researched at UZH. And we also continue to report on interesting academics and promising projects. The magazine shows selected highlights of the research going on at UZH every day and gives an insight into what our researchers and scholars think about topics that are of importance for society.