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Words from the editor
Dear Colleagues,
The year 2005 has begun like 2004 has ended – pretty busy. In the past two months we had to shape the future
of our NCCR. At the end of February, we submitted the full proposal for the NCCR continuation to the Swiss
National Science Foundation (SNSF). We had to identify the most promising projects that will be continued in
the next four years.
Additionally, all project and subproject leaders had to write their contributions for the Scientific Report,
which was also submitted at the end of February. Into these two documents an enormous amount of administrative
work and numerous discussions about the new project structure and budget were invested. However, it is not only
hard work, it is also very exciting to see what our NCCR will look like in the near future and which fascinating
research topics will be covered within the five projects. The positive side of the compilation of the Scientific
Report is that we now hold in our hands the outcome of the past year, and again we can be proud of what we have
achieved. Thank you all for your contributions! In particular, I would like to thank Christian Schönenberger,
our current Deputy Director and my successor, who invested a lot of time and energy during the last weeks.
Some of the success stories of the past year are also covered in this issue of nanonews: Martin Hegner received
the Scientist of the Year Award of the City of Basel. Reason enough to ask him to contribute the Cover Story on
the Bio-Nanomechanics-Project for this issue of nanonews. Wolfgang Belzig was honored the Walter-Schottky Prize
2005, the most prestigious prize for solid-state physics awarded by the German Physical Society, and Christoph
Gerber received several awards in recognition of his scientific achievements. Two of the NCCR spin-off
companies, Concentris and Nanonis, received the CTI-Start-up Label that qualifies companies on the climb to
sustainable growth.
As in the past the NCCR Nanoscale Science has contributed to and participated in numerous events and our
scientists have published excellent scientific papers. Under the topic “We introduce…” we present this time a
young women who has not published a scientific paper yet, but is already an expert in nanoscale science. She
has recently presented her remarkable high school research diploma on nanotechnology to the public.
I wish all of you happy reading and a lot of success in the first months of the World Year of Physics.
Yours sincerely,
Hans-Joachim Güntherodt
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