Improve your science communication skills – Staffnet - ETH Zürich

Statistics professors Dominik Rothenhäusler, Nicolai Meinshausen, Peter Bühlmann and Jonas Peters have been jointly honoured with the 2026 Frontiers of Science Award. The prize recognises outstanding scientific work that has made a significant contribution to basic research over the past ten years. Their awarded publication, Anchor regression: Heterogeneous data meet causality, represents a pioneering contribution to modern statistical methodology by bridging causal inference with the analysis of heterogeneous data. This work provides important foundations for further advances in data-driven research across disciplines.

Mitochondria are the tiny powerpacks that supply most of the energy our cells need. Their ability to generate this energy relies on a distinctive architecture: two membranes, one tucked inside the other, separated by a narrow gap called the intermembrane space (IMS). This tiny space helps sustain the chemistry of energy production, making its organization critical to how these cellular powerpacks function. Now, a new study led by a University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine investigator reports a potentially transformative discovery: the volume of the IMS is genetically controlled and adjustable. By controlling where this space expands or narrows within each mitochondrion, cells can actively shape the internal architecture of their powerpacks and tune how they function.

Pandemics can arise wherever animal or human populations are sufficiently large, and they are not confined to the modern age. Johan Jakobsson, Professor of Molecular Neurogenetics at Lund University, believes that the findings from the new study are highly relevant: they show that a virus can cause a DNA sequence to change across an entire population. "The virus we investigated specifically affected chimpanzees. Yet humans and chimpanzees have largely the same genetic makeup. That is why it is important to understand the differences in how genes are regulated. Our findings suggest that one gene, LINC00662, plays a significant role in early human brain development," says Johan Jakobsson.