Adriano Rutz wins the Swiss National ORD Prize

The Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences have awarded the National ORD Prize for the first time in 2023. This new prize acknowledges researchers at all career levels for innovative practices in the field of open research data (ORD) and aims to take the shift towards open research data forward.

Adriano Rutz, a postdoc in the field of molecular systems biology at ETH Zurich, was honoured with the ORD Gold Prize in first place. He was honoured for his project "The LOTUS Initiative". With 750,000 referenced structural organism pairs, the Open Science database is pioneering new ways of disseminating knowledge in natural products research by linking chemical structures and biological organisms with one another.

Impressive access and download rates

The combination of an interactive web portal and a Wikidata version enables LOTUS data to be re-used in a user-friendly way and further data to be added by the community. Impressive access and download rates demonstrate the importance of promoting collaborative and interdisciplinary projects, particularly in the fields of biology and chemistry. The ORD Gold Prize is endowed with CHF 10,000.

Adriano Rutz is a researcher at the Institute of Molecular Systems Biology (IMSB) in the Department of Biology in the group of Professor Nicola Zamboni. Adriano Rutz is a pharmacist. After working in the analytical research laboratory and R&D department of Tradall SA (Bacardi Group), he obtained his PhD in phytochemistry at the University of Geneva. He is currently developing computational tools and strategies based on mass spectrometry to better understand the chemistry of Life.

The theme of the 2023 National ORD Prize was ¡°The re-use of research data¡±. It acknowledges projects that either re-use data from other projects or make their own data available in such a way that other researchers can conduct further work with it.

For the benefit of society

"This recognition is not just a personal achievement, but a celebration of a team's and a wider community's commitment to open science. It is a call to action, a reminder that our responsibility as scientists goes beyond our individual projects, and that we must actively contribute to the flourishing of a global knowledge network for the benefit of society," says Adriano Rutz.

The National ORD Prize is part of the external page National Action Plan for ¡°Open Research Data¡±, which the Swiss Academies are helping to implement in the scope of the National Strategy for Open Research Data. Open Research Data fosters transparency, reproducibility and collaboration in the scientific and academic community.

ETH researchers have various options for opening up their data and publications. On the Open Science web page they will find information on the services and infrastructures available at ETH Zurich.