Immunologie

Jacques Fellay is a medical scientist with expertise in infectious diseases and human genomics. He obtained his MD from the University of Lausanne in 2002 and his PhD from University of Utrecht. After a clinical training in infectious diseases in Switzerland and a 4-years postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University, he joined the EPFL in April 2011 with an SNF Professorship. On top of his EPFL affiliation, Jacques is also Head of Precision Medicine at the University Hospital (CHUV) in Lausanne, Group Leader at the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, and Co-director of the Health2030 Genome Center at Campus Biotech in Geneva.

Dr. Michel Aguet, MD, held positions in academia and industry (Associate Professor at the Institute of Molecular Biology, University of Zürich; Head of Molecular Oncology, Genentech, So. San Francisco) before he was appointed director of the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) (1996-2009). In the context of the integration of ISREC into the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), he was appointed as Full Professor at the newly established School of Life Sciences in 2005. From 2001-2013 he directed the National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) in Molecular Oncology, a national program launched by the Swiss National Science Foundation to encourage translational cancer research and for which ISREC was the leading house. Dr. Aguet has been a SAB member in the pharmaceutical industry, biotech industry and venture capital industry since 1997. A large part of his scientific career was devoted to exploring the molecular biology of interferons (cloning of the interferon gamma receptor, generation of various interferon signaling mutants in the mouse) and, in collaboration with Prof. Charles Weissmann, to investigating the role of prion related protein PrP in mouse prion disease models. In recent years his research focused on characterizing the role of BCL9 proteins, which are part of the Wnt/beta-catenin transcriptional activation complex, in regulating stem cell traits in intestinal epithelium and colorectal cancer. His laboratory is now closed due to retirement.

Johan Auwerx is Professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he occupies the Nestle Chair in Energy Metabolism. Dr. Auwerx has been using molecular physiology and systems genetics to understand metabolism in health, aging and disease. Much of his work focused on understanding how diet, exercise and hormones control metabolism through changing the expression of genes by altering the activity of transcription factors and their associated cofactors. His work was instrumental for the development of agonists of nuclear receptors - a particular class of transcription factors - into drugs, which now are used to treat high blood lipid levels, fatty liver, and type 2 diabetes. Dr. Auwerx was amongst the first to recognize that transcriptional cofactors, which fine-tune the activity of transcription factors, act as energy sensors/effectors that influence metabolic homeostasis. His research validated these cofactors as novel targets to treat metabolic diseases, and spurred the clinical use of natural compounds, such as resveratrol, as modulators of these cofactor pathways. Johan Auwerx was elected as a member of EMBO in 2003 and is the recipient of a dozen of international scientific prizes, including the Danone International Nutrition Award, the Oskar Minkowski Prize, and the Morgagni Gold Medal. His work is highly cited by his peers with a h-factor of over 100. He is an editorial board member of several journals, including Cell Metabolism, Molecular Systems Biology, The EMBO Journal, Journal of Cell Biology, Cell, and Science. Dr. Auwerx co-founded a handful of biotech companies, including Carex, PhytoDia, and most recently Mitobridge, and has served on several scientific advisory boards. Dr. Auwerx received both his MD and PhD in Molecular Endocrinology at the Katholieke Universiteit in Leuven, Belgium. He was a post-doctoral research fellow in the Departments of Medicine and Genetics of the University of Washington in Seattle.

Patrick Aebischer a achevé une formation en Médecine (1980) et en Neurosciences (1983) aux Universités de Genève et de Fribourg en Suisse. De 1984 à 1992, Patrick Aebischer a travaillé à Brown University (USA) au sein du Département des Neurosciences et au Département des Biomatériaux et des Organes Artificiels en tant que Professeur assistant, puis Professeur associé. En 1992, Patrick Aebischer a été nommé Professeur de la Division Autonome de Recherche Chirurgicale et du Centre de Thérapie Génique (DARC) au Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV) à Lausanne. En 1999, Le Conseil Fédéral a nommé Patrick Aebischer en tant que Président de l'Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). Il a pris ses fonctions à la Présidence de l’EPFL en mars 2000, position qu'il a occupée jusqu'au 31 décembre 2016. Patrick Aebischer est membre de maintes sociétés professionnelles, tant en Europe qu’aux Etats-Unis. Patrick Aebischer a fondé trois start-up de biotechnologies. Il siège au conseil d'administration de Lonza, de Logitech et de Nestlé. Il préside également l'advisory board du Novartis Venture Fund. Patrick Aebischer est membre du conseil de fondation du Festival de Jazz de Montreux, du Festival de Verbier et de la Fondation Jacobs. Les recherches qu’il poursuit actuellement dans son laboratoire se concentrent sur le développement d'approches de thérapie cellulaire et de transfert génique pour le traitement des maladies neurodégénératives.

ACADEMIC POSITION: Professor, Director of the Laboratory of Behavioral Genetics, Brain Mind Institute, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. EDUCATION: • BS MS Salamanca, Spain, 1984 • PhD Cajal Institute, CSIC, and University Autonoma of Madrid, Spain, 1988 PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: • Postdoc at INSERM, Bordeaux, France, and Cajal Institute Madrid, Spain, 1989-1990 • Postdoc at the Open University, UK, 1991-1992, 1996 • Research Associate, Cajal Institute, CSIC, Madrid, 1993-1995 • Associate Professor Tenured, UNED University, Madrid, 1996-2003 • Sabbatical Professor, University of Bern, Switzerland, 2002-2003 • Assistant Professor Tenure-Track, EPFL, 2003-2007 • Associate Professor Tenured, EPFL, 2007-2012 • Full Professor, EPFL, 2012- • Director, Brain Mind Institute, EPFL, 2012- PRINCIPAL BOARDS: • President, European Brain and Behavior Society (EBBS), 2009-2012 • Editor-in-Chief “Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience” • Member of Scientific Advisory Panel, European College Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) • Member of the European Dana Alliance for the Brain (EDAB) • Associate Editor “Frontiers in Neuroscience” • Editorial Board Member “Neurobiology of Learning and Memory” • Editorial Board Member “Journal of Psychiatry Research” • Editorial Board Member “Stress” • Editorial Board Member “Biology of Mood and Anxiety Disorders” • Editorial Board Member “Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews”