With the European Inventor Award, the European Patent Office honours individual inventors and teams of inventors whose pioneering inventions provide answers to some of the biggest challenges of our times. Prof. Robert Grass, adjunct professor at ETH Zurich, and Prof. Wendelin J. Stark, Core PI at ETH Zurich, won the European Inventor Award 2021 for their work on stable data storage in glass-encapsulated DNA. When these beads are applied to products, they ensure that specific indicators - for example origin or working conditions - are traceable throughout the supply chain. Congratulations, Robert and Wendelin!