Prof Viola Vogel is a professor in the Department of Health Sciences and Technology (D-HEST) at ETH Zurich, where she leads the Laboratory of Applied Mechanobiology. With her background in physics and bioengineering, she pioneered the rapidly growing field of mechanobiology and its medical applications, with a focus on adhesins and extracellular matrix assembly and repair. She has discovered many structural mechanisms whereby mechanical forces can turn proteins into mechano-chemical switches, for which she was awarded an ERC Advanced Grant for research entitled “Proteins as Mechano-Chemical Switches.”