Viola Vogel is heading the Laboratory for Biologically Oriented Materials at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich. She received her Ph. D. in Physics at Frankfurt University, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley. She joined the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Washington in 1990, was the Founding Director of the Center for Nanotechnology at the University of Washington ('97-'03). Her interdisciplinary research program centers in bionanotechnology. She served the scientific community in many capacities which includes selection committees for the British Marshall Fund Fellowships ('93-'95), the German Ministry of Science and Education (BMBF) ('98), and as US Representative on the Council of Scientists of the Human Frontier Science Program ('03-'04). She was involved in program and technology assessments for NIH (ongoing), the National Research Council ("NASA's Microgravity Research" & "Reshape the Education in Lifesciences"), as PCAST panel member preparing for Clinton's "Presidential National Nanotechnology Initiative" ('99) and for the European Academy ('03-present). She is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).