Teaching

Teaching at University Zurich and ETH (1993-2008)

Teaching obligations in Medical Virology follow the concept of the curriculum for medical students. The program comprises teaching lessons on Medical Virology, laboratory classes, and a written final exam. The exam is evaluated by the Institut für Medizinische Lehre (IML) in Berne. The IML also makes statistics on the questions and the results, and the success by the students. The curriculum has changed in the year 2005. We have adjusted the curriculum for 2005 according to the new concept, whereby we have been involved in designing this new concept. This course is obligatory for medical students. About 250 to 300 students take part in this program.

Throughout the years 2003-2008 we have performed teaching for a new teaching and course program within the University (MN Faculty) and ETH on Microbiology. This included 28 hours of additional teaching mainly in Molecular Virology (in contrast to Medical Virology for the medical students) and laboratory experiments (about one week). This program was embedded into a larger program, to which several university institutions contribute, e.g. Medical Microbiology, Veterinary Virology, and Parasitology. About 35 to 40 students participate in this program, the majority coming from the ETH. This will also in the future require oral examinations, which have to be graded. Presently the majority of the students are given a chance to present a high quality up to date publication (e.g. Nature, Science) within 15 minutes. This training is highly accepted by the students.

The postgraduate course (PG-Kurs) involved two days of lecturing from our institute and about 12 students participate in this program, which has been organized throughout the last 8 years by Dr. Zapf, who coordinated the participations of many university institutions throughout Switzerland. The program lasted for 6 to 12 months and was followed by a scientific project in the laboratory of choice of the students.

Teaching at Free University Berlin, Humboldt University, Charité (1995-present)

In order to recruit good research students and to maintain my APL/Honorary Professorship and the status of External Faculty Member I teach classes in Berlin which consist of 3 to 4 blocks each semester comprising four hours each (this makes teaching one hour weekly equivalent per semester). I introduced this teaching program to Berlin to attract students to Zurich. The Free University of Berlin is one of 4 Universities with a high quality diploma in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, recently also in Bioinformatics both of which are numerus clausus programs attracting only the highest quality students. Based on this teaching program we offer a practical laboratory program for Biochemistry students of upper semesters in Zurich for two months. This high standard of the students was very highly accepted by the postdocs of the IMV for small projects (cloning, protein isolations, kinase assays, etc.). About 120 students have participated in this program over the years. We also recruited Diploma and PhD students from Berlin this way. It has always been difficult to recruit Swiss Diploma and PhD students to the IMV. Since about 3 years PhD students and postdocs apply for positions at the IMV on the basis of our Homepage. These come from all over the world. Therefore, the group comprises normally about 6 or more nationalities.

Vorlesung: „Signaltransduction, Viruses, Oncogenes, and Gene Therapies“ – Announcement Teaching FU TU HU.pdf

(1990 – today, each semester, 12 – 16 hours, for biochemistry, biology, medical and bioinformatics students including orally exams for biotechnology students)

combined with laboratory courses at the University of Zurich, minimal 2 months, 120 students in total

International courses

  1. Co-organisation of two international laboratory courses with European Molekularbiology Organization (EMBO) RNA-Tumorviruses at Fibiger Laboratory, Kopenhagen, 7.- 19.6.1976. RNA-Tumorviruses at Fibiger Laboratory, Kopenhagen, 16.- 29.10.1977
  2. Organisation of International EMBO-Laboratory Course on Advanced Techniques on RNA Tumor Viruses at Max-Planck-Institut für Molekulare Genetik, Berlin, 15.-27.10.1979
  3. Organization of workshop on „Evolution of Viruses and Hosts“, Institute of Advanced Study at Berlin, July 2009
  4. EMBO Global Exchange Lecture Course, Stellenbosch, South Africa, on HIV/AIDS, 29.01-5.2.2011, see power point overview of HIV/AIDS: PPT