Department of Bionanoscience opened

Revolution
One of the famous speakers was Professor Stefan Hell of the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen. In recent years, he has succeeded in significantly improving the resolution of microscope images – up to around 10 nanometres, which, according to Cees Dekker, is certain to unleash a revolution in biology. Other prominent speakers were Taekjip Ha (University of Illinois) on bacteriological research and single molecule biology and Albert van de Berg (University of Twente) on ''Nanofluidics for biological and medical applications''.

Biobrick
Following the speakers, a discussion forum was held on ‘Biology, the engineering science of the future?’ The department was then officially declared open by chairman of the Executive Board, Dirk Jan van de Berg, in front of the brand new biolab, the ‘Biobrick’. This was followed by an open-air lunch with theatre, molecular cooking, cartoons and tours of the lab.

Director
With the opening of the Department of Bionanoscience, Professor Cees Dekker became Director of the TU Delft Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, where a large part of the nano research carried out at the University is based. Professor Dekker succeeds Professor Hans Mooij, who was Director from 2004. The new initiative means that the Kavli Institute now has two departments: Bionanoscience and Quantum Nanoscience.

Staff members
The Department of Bionanoscience, which carries out research at the interface between nanotechnology and biology, has increased its staff numbers from three to seven (Cees Dekker, Nynke Dekker, Juan Keymer, Sander Tans, David Grünwald, Christophe Danelon and Bertus Beaumont) and from 1 January 2011 another three new tenure-trackers will start (Chirlmin Joo, Anne Meyer and Elio Abbondanzieri).