Obituary for Theodor (Theo) Koller

Theodor (Theo) Koller was full Professor of Cell Biology from 1974 to 1995, and full Professor of Environmental Hygiene at the Institute for Hygiene and Applied Physiology at ETH Zurich from 1995 to 2001. He retired on 1 April 2001.

Born on 23 March 1936 in Zurich, Prof. Koller studied medicine in Basel, where he earned his doctorate in 1961. He was appointed Professor for Cell Biology at ETH Zurich in 1974, after scientific activity in the Institute for Physiology at the University of Basel; the University Hospital at Basel; the CNRS in Villejuif, Val de Marne, France; the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA; and the Electron Microscopy Laboratory of ETH Zurich. From 1982 to 1986 he was chairman of the Division of Natural Sciences. He was awarded the Cloetta Prize in 1979, named Scholar of the Johns Hopkins University in 1981, and was elected to the EMBO in 1985. He was one of the founders of the Department of Environmental Sciences at the ETH Zurich. From 1990 to 1992 he was the first chairman of this department. From 1996 to 2001 he was head of the Environmental Health Section.

One of the founders of the Environmental Sciences degree programme

Theo Koller was not only a founding member, but played a central role in the creation of the Environmental Sciences degree programme. After the discussion about forest dieback in the early 1980s and the nuclear disaster of Chernobyl, as well as the chemical accident at Schweizerhalle in Basel, both in 1986, the time was right for an interdisciplinary degree programme at ETH. The ETH President at the time, Heinrich Ursprung, therefore commissioned Theo Koller to create the Environmental Sciences degree programme. The intention was to create a broad programme integrating various disciplines, following the insight that environmental problems of this dimension could not be understood and certainly not solved from a purely disciplinary perspective, but could only be tackled by combining natural and social science disciplines.

A successful start

Anticipating the difficulties of setting up such a broad-based project, Theo Koller chose an unconventional path: he did not appoint a professor (there were hardly any female professors at the time) to the setting-up committee; instead, he had a group of innovative and resourceful members of the scientific staff develop the teaching concept (some of whom later became professors). In the autumn of 1987, the programme was ready: instead of the envisaged 45, 120 students started the first year.

Open, modest and accessible to all

Theo Koller, as he described himself, was academically focused, but always open to new ideas. Ready to say goodbye to what he had achieved and to start something new. Former students describe him as a popular, committed and accessible lecturer. As one of the few medical doctors at ETH at the time, he was keen to convey an understanding of physiology to the biologists and biochemists on the Environmental Sciences programme. His legacy for the environmental sciences is great, and it continues to have an impact to this day. Through it all, Theo Koller remained a modest man, without airs and graces, accessible to all. Being in the public spotlight was not his thing: for example, he deliberately refrained from giving a farewell lecture.

Members of ETH Zurich, his former staff and students and his colleagues will remember him with great fondness.