The École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) is one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology and is located in Lausanne, Switzerland. The school was founded by the Swiss Federal Government with the stated mission to: The sister institution in the German-speaking part of Switzerland is the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETH Zürich or ETHZ). Associated with several specialised research institutes, the two sister institutes form the ETH Domain, which is directly dependent on the Federal Department of Home Affairs. EPFL is ranked among the top universities in the world. Founded in 1853 as a private school under the name École Spéciale de Lausanne, it became the technical department of the public Académie de Lausanne in 1869. When the latter was reorganized and acquired the status of a university in 1890, the technical faculty changed its name to École d'Ingénieurs de l'Université de Lausanne. In 1946, it was renamed the École polytechnique de l'Université de Lausanne (EPUL).
Big data identifies lipids as signatures of health and disease
Biology is swaddled in lipids: fats, oils, and even waxes envelop cells and their organelles, mediate the flow of vast biological information networks, protect fragile tissues, and store essential energy across multiple organisms.
Jun 13, 2018
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Tracking energy flow in large molecules
Absorption of light energy by large molecules is what drives nature: photosynthesis, vision, the synthesis of vitamin D and many other critical processes use light energy to perform their functions.
Recycling quartz from mining waste
An EPFL engineer has discovered a way to extract value from mining waste by recycling the quartz it contains to make composite surfaces for kitchen and bathroom countertops. Brazil-based Vale, the world's largest producer ...
A nanotech sensor that turns molecular fingerprints into bar codes
Infrared spectroscopy is the benchmark method for detecting and analyzing organic compounds. But it requires complicated procedures and large, expensive instruments, making device miniaturization challenging and hindering ...
Detecting the birth and death of a phonon
Phonons are discrete units of vibrational energy predicted by quantum mechanics that correspond to collective oscillations of atoms inside a molecule or a crystal. When such vibrations are produced by light interacting with ...
Resolving molecule information in dynamic lipid membrane with metasurfaces
Detecting biomolecules, such as lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids and their interactions in heterogeneous biological samples is crucial for understanding a multitude of biological mechanisms in health and disease. For instance, ...
A platform for extracting crucial information from satellite images
EPFL start-up Picterra has devised a smart system that allows users to analyze drone or satellite images of a given territory: in a few clicks, they can extract information, statistics and representations of changes that ...
An elastic fiber filled with electrodes set to revolutionize smart clothes
EPFL has developed tiny fibers made of elastomer that can incorporate materials like electrodes and nanocomposite polymers. The fibers can detect even the slightest pressure and strain, and can withstand deformation of close ...
Observing cellular activity, one molecule at a time
Proteins and molecules assemble and disassemble naturally as part of many essential biological processes. It is very difficult to observe these mechanisms, which are often complex and take place at the nanometer scale, far ...
Mystery solved: The bacterial protein that kills male fruit flies
In the fifties, geneticists were faced with a mystery: when two strains of the same fruit fly species (Drosophila) crossed, they only produced female flies instead of the expected 50:50 sex ratio. At first, scientists thought ...
