Professor Dr Max Cloëtta Foundation
Promotion and support of medical research
The Professor Dr Max Cloëtta Foundation supports and promotes medical research as well as related disciplines of natural sciences in Switzerland.
History
Learn more about the foundation’s history.
PURPOSE
Read more about the foundation’s purpose.
FUNDING
We support research at Swiss universities, clinics and institutes.
The Cloëtta Prize 2025 is awarded to a researcher from ETH Zurich and a research duo from the University of Geneva.
Zurich. For the 52nd time, the Professor Dr. Max Cloëtta Foundation presented its renowned prize for medical research. The prize in 2025 is awarded for their outstanding research to:
Dr Virginie Hamel and Professor Paul Guichard, co-leaders of a research group in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Geneva, and Professor Nicola Aceto, Full Professor of Molecular Oncology at ETH Zurich.
Virginie Hamel and Paul Guichard
Dr Hamel and Professor Guichard have significantly advanced our understanding of centrioles and cilia, tiny cellular structures crucial for cell division and genetic integrity, as well as for cell motility. They pioneered Ultrastructural Expansion Microscopy (U-ExM), a groundbreaking imaging method that physically enlarges biological samples, making nanoscale details visible with standard microscopes. Their discoveries have opened new avenues for gene therapies, including applications in rare genetic diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa, and are now also being applied to cancer immunotherapy, creating a pioneering bridge between basic research and clinical medicine.
Nicola Aceto
Professor Aceto has made groundbreaking discoveries on the mechanisms of cancer metastasis. He revealed the central role of circulating tumour cell clusters (CTC clusters) in the formation of metastases and identified their key biological properties, including stem cell-like features, interactions with immune cells, and circadian timing of their release. Building on these insights, his team has developed novel therapeutic strategies to disrupt CTC clusters, with promising proof-of-concept results already shown in breast cancer patients. His vision is to develop innovative therapies to curb metastasis in aggressive cancers, thereby combining excellent basic research with tangible clinical perspectives.
Venue
The Cloëtta award ceremony took take place on October 31, 2025, at 5:00 pm in the Semperaula of ETH Zurich.
Lecture of the Prize recipients
As part of the award ceremony, the Professor Dr Max Cloëtta Foundation publishes the lectures of the prize recipients within its Publication Series. The lectures by Dr Hamel and Prof. Guichard, as well as Prof. Aceto, can be downloaded from our website: https://cloetta-foundation.ch/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Cloetta_Broschure_53.pdf
We support and promote medical research
“Research promotion in Switzerland is not exclusively a task of our government. On the contrary, two thirds of the means allotted to research and development originate from business. Private foundations also play a very important role in this respect. Wellknown Prize awards – such as the Cloëtta Prize – accentuate the importance of foundations for the scientific world.”
Ruth Dreifuss, Federal Counsellor
Volume 1 of the Monograph Professor Dr Max Cloëtta Foundation
