Alexander Harms , Faculty of Science, University of Basel, Switzerland; received the 2023 SSM encouragement award.

Simona Huwiler, Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Zurich, received the 2022 SSM encouragement award.

Nicholas Taylor, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences , University of Copenhagen (group of Prof. Hardt) received the 2018 SSM encouragement award for his work on the structural biology of bacteriophages and type VI secretion. During his time in Prof. Leiman’s (at EPFL, Lausanne), Nicholas’ prime achievement has been the single-particle cryo-electron microscopy structure determination of the 6-MDa T4 baseplate in its pre- and post-host attachment conformations. His first-author manuscript featuring this work has appeared recently as a 7-page article in Nature andwas featured on the cover (Taylor et al, Nature 2016, Figure 1). All these studies have been performed in Switzerland. Part of the work was also performed at the University of Basel in the laboratory of Henning Stahlberg.

Médéric Diard, Institute of Microbiology, D-BIOL, ETH Zurich, Switzerland (group of Prof. Hardt) received the 2017 SSM award for his noteworthy investigation of the evolutionary dynamics of pathogenic bacteria. In particular, the virulence of Salmonella Typhimurium (Nature 494 (7437), 353-356, 2013), the selection for virulence by antibiotic treatment (Current Biology 24 (17), 2000-2005, 2014), and the impact of the host immunity on the dynamics of horizontal gene transfer during infection (Science 355 (6330), 1211-1215, 2017 and Nature (544), 498–502, 2017).

Gaël Panis, Department of Microbiology and Molecular Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Switzerland (group of Prof. Patrick Viollier). Gaël received the 2016 SSM award for his scientific contributions on the Caulobacter crescentus cell cycle, more particularly his investigation to understand how an epigenetic regulatory pair, composed by the CcrM methyltransferase and the enigmatic transcriptional regulator GcrA, controls cell cycle transcription in this synchronizable bacterial model (PLOS Biology, 11(12):e1001749, 2014). The committee also wanted to encourage his ongoing works on the ΦCbK bacteriophage, a specific Caulobacter virus (Journal of Virology, 86(18):10234-5, 2012). Gaël gave his award lecture entitled "GcrA/CcrM epigenetic module in bacterial cell cycle control and host-pathogen interactions."

Nicolas Jacquier, Institute of Microbiology, Lausanne, Switzerland (group of Prof Greub) received the 2015 SSM award for his outstanding research on the biology of Chlamydia and Chlamydia-like organisms, and more specifically on their division (Nat Commun. 2014; 5: 3578-3580; Chemistry & Biology 2015; 22, 1217–1227) and their specific peptidoglycan (Nat Commun. 2014; 5: 4200-4202).

Tobias J. Erb. Dr. Tobias Erb forscht und lehrt seit Juli 2011 am Institut für Mikrobiologie der ETH Zürich als SNF-Ambizione-Gruppenleiter. [...]

Silvio Brugger, Dr.med. et Dr. phil., Inst. für Infektionskrankheiten, Universität Bern, Prof. Dr.med. et phil. Kathrin Mühlemann. Dr. Bruggers actual research work is on the physiological regulation of the capsule characteristics of pneumococci and the epidemiology and biology of nasopharyngeal colonization. The awardee has already published an impressive number of papers in renowned journals and has obtained his MD-PhD degreee with "summa cum laude".

Michael Berney, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Otago School of Medical Sciences, University of Otago, P.O. Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand. [...]

Socorro Mesa, Institute of Microbiology ETH Zürich. The awardee holds a group leader position in Hauke Henneckes lab where she is working on the regulatory networks in the soil bacterium Bradyrhizobium japonicum. [...]

Bärbel Stecher, Institute of Microbiology ETH Zürich for her work on the mechanisms of diarrheal Salmonella infections. [...]

Matthias Christen, Biocenter, Basel, for his work on the allosteric control of cyclic di-guanosine monosphate (c-di-GMP), a novel secondary messenger in bacteria [...]

Thomas K. Meier, Institute of Microbiology, Eidg. Techn. Hochschule (ETHZ), Wolfgang-Pauli-Str. 10, CH 8093 Zurich, Switzerland for his work to elucidate the molecular architecture of a biological turbine [...]

Gabriella Pessi, Institute of Microbiology ETHZ/HCI G429, CH-8093 ZURICH Switzerland. Gabriella Pessi was awarded for her outstanding work in the field of membrane synthesis of Plasmodium falciparum [...]

Martin K. Ackermann, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA. Population biology / Senescence in a bacterium.

Patrick Viollier, Stanford University, School of Medicine, CA, USA. Spatial regulation of polar morphogenesis in the asymmetric bacterium Caulobacter crescentus

Annette Oxenius, Nuffield Dept. of Clinical Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, UK. Modulation of HIV-specific immunity with novel therapeutic strategies.

Urs Ochsner, University of Colorado, Health Sciences Center, USA, Denver, Colorado, USA. Regulation of Iron Acquisition and Storage in Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Guido Funke, Institut für Medizinische Mikrobiologie, Universität Zürich, Switzerland. Contributions in the field of systematic bacteriology, in particular on the classification of Gram-positive rods.

Linda Thöny-Meyer, Institut für Mikrobiologie, ETHZ, Zürich, Switzerland. C-Type cytochromes in Bradyrhizobium japonicum