Further information: Nano Imaging Lab https://nanoscience.unibas.ch/ en/services/nano-imaging-lab/ Markus Dürrenberger is not only an expert in all kinds of microscopes, but also an enthusiastic teacher and an outstanding technician. diately after completing his doctoral disser- Since then, the NI Lab has become an import- tation, Markus spent a year at the Scripps ant pillar of the SNI. Thanks to the outstand- Research Institute in La Jolla (California, USA) ing work of the whole team within the SNI in order to share his experience in the 昀椀eld network and beyond, it is now a sought-after of plastics processing in microscopy. “I didn’t partner for all questions relating to imaging particularly like it there, mostly because of and analysis. the working environment and conditions, and I quickly applied to the University of Markus worked hard from the outset to re- Zurich with a view to creating a service de- new the NI Lab’s infrastructure, making sure partment for electron microscopy,” Dürren- it was 昀椀t for the future by the time of his re- berger recalls. tirement in 2023 and providing his successor, Dr. Marcus Wyss, with ideal conditions as he Then, after four successful years in Zurich, took up his new role. “When I retired in 2023, Professor Ueli Aebi brought Markus Dürren- all of the instruments were under 10 years berger back to Basel in 1993, o昀昀ering him a old. Thanks to an excellent new transmission position at the Maurice E. Müller Institute electron microscope, the NI Lab can fully in order to set up the Center for Microsco- meet the needs of materials science,” he says. py (ZMB) as a service platform for biological research and analyses. “It was a great time,” An enthusiastic tinkerer and teacher Markus recalls. “We had just about every In the interview, it quickly becomes clear kind of microscope that existed back then. how passionate Markus is about microscopy The highlight was the world’s fastest confo- and how fascinated he was with the technical cal microscope, operating at 240 frames a aspects of his work. Throughout his career, second.” he was never content simply to apply ex- isting equipment or methods — as soon as Part of the SNI team since 2016 he had mastered a machine’s operation, he Due to restructuring measures, the ZMB was would set about modifying, improving and dissolved in 2016. Markus and part of his expanding it. team were incorporated into the Swiss Na- noscience Institute (SNI) in the form of the For example, cooling systems that he devel- Nano Imaging Lab, where they would devote oped for the microscopes were subsequently more of their time to questions relating to adopted by the manufacturers — and there materials science. are also preparation machines that are based SNI INSight December 2023 11