Obituary for Prof. Hans M. Eppenberger

Hans Eppenberger was born in Basel on June 20, 1936. He studied Biology at the University of Basel and obtained his doctorate there in 1962, having carried out his doctoral thesis at the Institute of Medicinal Chemistry. After a 15-month post-doctoral period at Harvard Medical School in Boston in the laboratory of Prof. E. Knox, he worked as a Research Associate at Brandeis University in the laboratory of Prof. N.O. Kaplan. There he researched in particular the biochemistry of creatine kinase isoenzymes, a topic he continued to pursue intensively in later years. After returning to Switzerland, he was Chargé de Cours at the University of Neuchâtel before being appointed to the ETH. In 1986 he was a visiting professor at the University of California San Diego and in 1991 he was Special Scientific Councellor in San Francisco. In 1990 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Umea in Sweden. After his retirement, he continued to work as an ombudsman at ETH Zurich for several years.

Hans Eppenberger was an enthusiastic researcher and teacher, and his senior colleagues of many years enjoyed the great freedom of research that he allowed. He devoted his research in particular to the biochemistry and cell biology of skeletal muscle and later cardiac muscle cells. He studied these cells in embryonic development, in the adult healthy organism and in heart disease. His work therefore also made an important contribution to basic medical research. He provided the initial impetus for the introduction of confocal microscopy and thus also promoted the expansion of the spectrum of microscopy methods at ETH and throughout Switzerland. The scientific results of Hans Eppenberger and his team, which also included his wife Dr Monika Eppenberger, are documented in a total of 167 publications in internationally renowned journals. Even after his retirement, he was still active for many years as a scientific advisor in the field of basic cardiological research in Germany and abroad. In teaching, he was involved in basic training in cell biology and in special lectures and practical courses in molecular cardiology.

We have known Hans Eppenberger as an enthusiastic scientist and university teacher as well as an extremely pleasant colleague who always remained modest despite his scientific successes. During his long professional career, he was continuously committed to the Department of Biology, ETH Zurich and the scientific community in general. In doing so, he was active in numerous commissions, such as the Research Council of the Swiss National Science Foundation. He was also head of the Department of Biology.

The Department of Biology as well as his numerous staff and students and his colleagues will keep him in grateful and honourable memory.