Stewart ColeProfessor Stewart Cole is an international authority in bacterial molecular-genetics and genomics. He has made outstanding contributions in several fields including: bacterial anaerobic electron transport; genome analysis of retroviruses and papillomaviruses; antibiotic resistance mechanisms; and the molecular microbiology of toxigenic clostridia. His studies on isoniazid and multidrug resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, together with his pioneering work on the pathogenicity, evolution and genomics of the tubercle and leprosy bacilli, have made him an undisputed leader in the field of mycobacterial research. The findings of his research are of direct relevance to public health and disease-control in both the developing world and the industrialised nations. He has published over 250 scientific papers and review articles, and holds many patents.
Jacques FellayJacques 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.
Tamar Kohn2014 - present Associate Professor, EPFL and adjunct researcher, Eawag 2007 - 2013 Assistant Professor, EPFL 2004 - 2006 Postdoctoral researcher, UC Berkeley 2000 - 2004 PhD, Environmental Engineering, Johns Hopkins University 1999 Diploma, Environmental Sciences, ETHZ
Didier TronoAprès des études de médecine à l’Université de Genève et une formation clinique en pathologie, médecine interne et maladies infectieuses à Genève et au Massachusetts General Hospital de Boston, Didier Trono s’engage dans une carrière scientifique au Whitehead Institute du MIT. En 1990, il est recruté par le Salk Institute de San Diego pour lancer un centre de recherche sur le SIDA. Il rentre en Europe sept ans plus tard, avant de prendre en 2004 les rênes de la toute nouvelle faculté des Sciences de la Vie de l’EPFL, dont il orchestre le développement et qu’il dirige jusqu’en 2012. Il participe aujourd’hui activement à la coordination des efforts de la Suisse en vue de l’intégration des nouvelles technologies dans le domaine de la médecine de précision et de la santé personnalisée.
Melanie BlokeschMelanie Blokesch holds a PhD degree from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, Germany. After a postdoctoral stay at Stanford University (USA; Department of Microbiology and Immunology) she joined EPFL as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in 2009 and was promoted to Associate Professor (tenured) in 2016. In 2018, Melanie Blokesch was nominated as new member of the the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) National Research Council (starting date: April 2019). Melanie Blokesch is also an elected member of the European Academy of Microbiology (EAM; since 2018) and the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO; since 2019). Among other awards and grants, Melanie Blokesch has been honored with the Prize for Junior Scientists of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in 2005, an ERC Starting Grant in 2012, the EPFL teaching award "Polysphère" for best teacher in the School of Life Sciences (academic year 2014-2015), the Research Award by the Association for General and Applied Microbiology (VAAM; Germany) in 2015, and an ERC Consolidator Grant in 2016. In 2017, Melanie Blokesch was awarded a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) International Research Scholarship.
John McKinneyProfessor John McKinney received his Ph.D. from The Rockefeller University (New York, NY) in 1994 for studies on cell cycle regulation in
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
in the laboratory of Fred Cross. From 1995 to 1998, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of William Jacobs at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (Bronx, NY), where he studied mechanisms of persistence in
Mycobacterium tuberculosis
. In 1999, he returned to Rockefeller University to establish his own laboratory as an Assistant (1999-2004) and then Associate (2004-2007) Professor. In July 2007, the lab relocated to the Global Health Institute in the School of Life Sciences at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, where McKinney is Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Microbiology and Microsystems (LMIC). Our research focuses on understanding the mechanistic basis of bacterial persistence in the context of host immunity and antimicrobial therapy, using
M. tuberculosis
as a "model" system.
Françoise Gisou van der Goot GrunbergGisou van der Goot est responsable du Laboratoire de Biologie Cellulaire et Membranaire et co-fondatrice de l'Institut dInfectiologie, à la Faculté des Sciences de la Vie de l'EPFL.Depuis 2021, Prof. van der Goot est Vice-présidente pour la transformation responsable, moteur du changement de l’EPFL vers une culture inclusive et un campus durable. De 2014 à 2020, Prof. van der Goot a occupé la fonction de Doyenne de cette même Faculté.Avant sa nomination à l'EPFL, en 2006, elle était Cheffe de Groupe à la Faculté des Sciences de lUniversité de Genève (UNIGE), puis Professeure Associée à la Faculté de Médecine. Prof. van der Goot a d'abord obtenu un diplôme dIngénieur de l'Ecole Centrale de Paris avant dentamer une thèse en Biophysique Moléculaire au CEA de Saclay (Université de Paris VI), suivie dun séjour postdoctoral au Laboratoire Européen de Biologie Moléculaire (EMBL) à Heidelberg (Allemagne). Différentes distinctions lui ont été décernées, dont, en 2001, le Prix Young Investigator de l'EMBO (Organisation européenne de Biologie Moléculaire), puis, en 2005, le soutien par le programme international du Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI, Etats-Unis); en 2009, elle a été la première femme à obtenir le Prix Marcel Benoist. La même année, elle est élue membre de lEMBO. Les domaines dexpertise du Prof. van der Goot incluent les mécanismes moléculaires et cellulaires des toxines bactériennes, l'organisation des membranes (des mammifères) et la biologie des organelles. Prof. van der Goot est membre du conseil scientifique de diverses organisations telles que le Fonds National Suisse de la Recherche Scientifique (SNF), le Conseil Suisse de la Science et de la Technologie (CSST) et le Conseil Européen de la Recherche (ERC).
Peter Martin BeardPeter Beard studied mathematics, physics and chemistry at the University of Glasgow. After graduating in biochemistry, he moved to the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London, where he obtained his PhD with L.V. Crawford in 1971. He then worked with P. Berg at Stanford University at the time the idea of gene cloning was first being tested. After initially joining B. Hirt in the Virology group at ISREC, he subsequently became a member of the senior scientific staff and was appointed as EPFL Adjunct Professor (professeur titulaire) in 2008. His work has focused on the relation between viral infections and cancer. Since 2011 he is Professor Emeritus and works with the undergraduate Teaching Section of Life Sciences and Technology on coordinating the Master's program in Molecular Medicine.
