News

March 2026

The work of the plant natural products subgroup is highlighted in the external page Mein Entlebuch magazine!

This enlightening article written by Florian Knaus describes our collaborative work alongside the Schölmerich group (D-USYS) to understand the drivers of peatland health at the molecular level.

Many thanks to the Messerli Foundation for sponsoring this research project.

March 2026

Congratulations to Ida Hipfinger and Fabian Willenborg on successfully passing their Aptitude Colloquia!

They have both proposed bio-based routes, from single enyzme transformations to the reconstitution of entire pathway cascades in cellulo, to achieve complex chemistry with broad impacts in biomedical sciences.

February 2026

Congratulations to our plant natural products team Anita Berg and Chad Papenfuhs for their publication Diterpenoid Diversity across Land Plants in external page Helvetica Chimica Acta!

December 2025

The Fraley Group celebrated the year's accomplishments with an ice skating trip to the Dolder Kunsteisbahn and a holiday dinner together.

We are looking forward to an exciting year ahead!

December 2025

Congratulations to Ida Hipfinger who published a review article on the Biochemistry and Structure of Nonheme Iron and α-Ketoglutarate-Dependent Halogenases in the external page Encyclopedia of Inorganic and Bioinorganic Chemistry!

November 2025

Congratulations to Eléonore Moore who published a paper on Bio-based approaches for selective cyclization in external page Chimia!

November 2025

The Fraley Group welcomed students from the Mathematisch Naturwissenschaftliches Gymnasium Rämibühl in Zurich to visit the lab!

We talked about natural products research and higher education in the chemical, biological, and pharmaceutical sciences.

November 2025

Amy presented the group's work in a plenary lecture at the external page 10th Brazilian Conference on Natural Products (BCNP) and the XXXVI Meeting on Micromolecular Evolution, Systematics, and Ecology (RESEM)!

October 2025

Congratulations to Eléonore Moore who successfully passed her aptitude colloquium!

Elé has proposed an intricate three-phase biochemical investigation of flagship anticancer indole alkaloids from marine systems.

September 2025

The Fraley Group attended the external page Swiss Chemical Society Annual Meeting in Zurich!

Anita, Elé, Ida, Fabian, and Rassil all presented their work with posters.

September 2025

Fabian attended the external page Advanced Synthetic Biology & Metabolic Engineering of Pseudomonas Summer School hosted by Cold Spring Harbor Asia!

Fabian presented a poster on his research and future directions.

September 2025

Ida participated in the external page EUROPIN Summer School on Drug Design in Vienna!

Ida presented a poster highlighting progress on her research.

August 2025

Amy traveled to KU Leuven to visit the Masschelein lab, give an invited talk, and serve as an external examiner of the doctoral thesis of Eveline Vriens!

August 2025

Chad participated in the Iexternal page nternational Summer School in Non-Targeted Metabolomics Data Mining for Exposomics and Natural Products Research!

July 2025

Amy presented the group's work for an invited talk at the external page 75th Annual Meeting of the Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology in San Francisco!

June 2025

Elé, Anita, and Amy participated in the external page 2025 SNE Chemical Biology Meeting!

Anita and Elé presented posters for the Swiss Network for Interdisciplinary Education in Chemical Biology.

April 2025

Congratulations to Chad Papenfuhs who successfully passed his aptitude colloquium!

Chad has proposed a dual strategy combining the evaluation of plant metabolic adaptations to environmental changes in both the field and laboratory microcosms.

April 2025

Welcome to Fabian who joined the group as a PhD student!

Fabian received his BSc in Biochemistry from the Goethe University Frankfurt and his MSc in interdisciplinary sciences from ETH Zurich. His previous research gave him experience in mammalian and yeast cell biology, chemical biology, protein evolution and pathway evolution. His PhD thesis aims to use biocatalysis for sustainable production of marine derived alkaloids in a heterologous host.

April 2025

The Fraley Lab participated in the ETHZ Treffpunkt Science City, contributing tours of the Medicinal Chemistry Lab and a walk through the process of natural product discovery!

March 2025

Welcome to Ida Hipfinger who joined the group as a PhD student!

Ida received her BSc in Chemistry from the Technical University of Vienna, and her MSc in Medicinal Chemistry from the Technical University of Denmark. Her previous research focused on synthesizing and modelling novel inhibitors for sterol transport proteins. Her PhD thesis aims to broaden the substrate scope of fluorinase enzymes, enabling their use in biocatalysis-based medicinal chemistry and radiolabeling.

January 2025

The Fraley Group Out and About!

Amy visited the Kantonsschule Uster to deliver a lecture entitled Expedition Apotheke: A Journey through Nature's Pharmacy as part of the ETH Unterwegs program.

January 2025

Congratulations to Anita Berg who successfully passed her aptitude colloquium!

Anita has proposed an intriguing combination of biochemistry and synthetic chemistry to expand our understanding of secondary metabolism in underexplored plant systems.

January 2025

The Fraley Group is awarded funding from the Messerli Foundation!

These funds will support the PhD thesis of Chad Papenfuhs, to decipher the metabolic drivers of peatland health in the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in Entlebuch, Switzerland.

December 2024

End of Year Celebration

The group celebrated the accomplishments of their first year with a group lunch and gingerbread house competition, complete with our very own gingerbread LC-MS (designed and built by PhD student Chad Papenfuhs)!

October 2024

Welcome to Eléonore Moore who joined the group as a PhD student!

Eléonore received both her BSc and MSc in Interdisciplinary Science from ETH Zürich. Her previous research projects ranged from the photocatalytic synthesis of heterocycles to the optimization of a reporter system for protease activity. She will now use her chemical and biological knowledge to investigate sustainable ways to produce marine-derived alkaloids using biocatalysis.  

September 2024

On September 18, Amy gave her inaugural lecture entitled "Sustainable Chemistry Inspired by Nature"

A link to the recording can be found here.

August 2024

The first annual Fraley Group retreat featured a morning workshop on mentoring, followed by an afternoon of teamwork while sailing on the Zürisee. Special thank you to Fritz Bräker and the Segelclub UniversitätsSpital Zürich!

July 2024

Welcome to Teresa Horák, who joined the group as a research assistant!

July 2024

Fraley Lab Independence Day

On July 4, 2024, the Fraley Lab opened its doors as a fully renovated state-of the art laboratory for (bio)chemical research.

June 2024

On Wednesday 19th June 2024 we had our first group field sampling collection at the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in Entlebuch!

June 2024

Welcome to Chad Papenfuhs who joined the group as a PhD student!

Chad received his BSc in Microbiology and Infectious Disease from the University of Texas at Austin, and his MSc in Microbiology from the University of Zürich. His previous research involved plant-microbe interactions with a focus on symbiosis and adaptation to extraterrestrial environments. His PhD projects will continue to investigate plant-microbe interactions, but with the aim of elucidating the genetic basis for biosynthetic pathways involved in the production of resilience factors and bioactive natural products.

May 2024

Pharmaceutical Discovery from Microbial Communities, a D-BIOL course developed by Amy, has been nominated for the 2024 KITE Award!

Amy presented the course at the ETH Zürich Learning and Teaching Fair 2024.

May 2024

Amy is awarded a JSP Fellowship to present the group's research at the Bürgenstock Conference!

More information can be found external page here.

February 2024

Welcome to Anita Berg who joined the group as a PhD student!

Anita received both her BSc and MSc in Chemistry from ETH Zürich. Her research projects were interdisciplinary, spanning from synthetic chemistry and catalysis to microbial biosynthesis of natural products. She now plans to expand her expertise in catalysis and biosynthesis with projects focused on the sustainable production of bioactive plant terpenoids.